Late Iron Age Whaling in Scandinavia

The use of bone from marine mammals as raw material in the manufacturing of gaming pieces in the Scandinavian late Iron Age have been observed and discussed during the last few years. New empirical studies have created a chronology as well as a typology showing how the design of the gaming pieces is tightly connected to different choices of raw material from antler in the roman and migration period, to whalebone in the 6 th century and walrus in the 10th century. The ocular examination of the whalebone can, however, rarely go beyond a determination of bone from cetaceans. The following article presents the results from 68 samples of whalebone gaming pieces that have been species determined using ZooMSms. The results show a consistent use of bones from North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and is thus a strong argument for there being an active and largescale hunt for this type of whale starting inthe 6 h century. However, the manufacturing of gaming pieces was most likely not the reason for hunting whales, but merely a by-product that has survived in the archaeological record. Of greater importance was probably baleen, meat and the blubber that could be rendered into oil. The oil might have been an additional trading product on the far-reaching trade networks developing during the period

Viking Age tar production and outland exploitation

The use of tar and resinous substances dates back far into Scandinavian prehistory. How it was produced, however, was unknown until recent excavations in eastern Sweden revealed funnel-shaped features—now identified as structures for producing tar. A new way of organising tar production appeared in the eighth century AD, leading to large-scale manufacture within outland forests. Intensified Viking Age maritime activities probably increased the demand for tar, which also became an important trade commodity. The transition to intensive tar manufacturing implies new ways of organising production, labour, forest management and transportation, which influenced the structure of Scandinavian society and connected forested outlands with the world economy

Christian Løchsen Rødsrud og Axel Mjærum (red.): Ingen vei utenom – Arkeologiske undersøkelser i forbindelse med etablering av ny rv.3/25 i Løten og Elverum kommuner, Innlandet

Bokanmeldelse av boken Ingen vei utenom – Arkeologiske undersøkelser i forbindelse med etablering av ny rv.3/25 i Løten og Elverum kommuner, Innlandet / Redaktører Christian Løchsen Rødsrud og Axel Mjærum

Towards a Refined Chronology of Prehistoric Pitfall Hunting in Sweden

Among the most prominent prehistoric features in the boreal forests of northern Sweden are trapping pits or pitfalls used for hunting elk and/or reindeer. Even if often ascribed to the Viking Age and its trade in furs and other animal products, the chronology of these features has long been a matter of debate. In this article, a database of 370 dated radiocarbon samples from excavated pitfalls has been compiled and analysed using Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) modelling to create the most elaborate chronology of Swedish trapping pit systems so far. The analysis shows that the most intensive period of construction of trapping pits was in the centuries before the Viking period. This challenges previous interpretations of Viking Age resource exploitation but is in line with several other recently published studies concerned with resource exploitation, non-agrarian production, and trade connecting northern Scandinavia with inter-regional trade networks

Outlanders? : Resource colonisation, raw material exploitation and networks in Middle Iron Age Sweden

The Middle Iron Age, around 300–650 CE, was characterised by extensive transformations across many aspects of society in the area of present-day Sweden. Within the central agricultural regions of the southern parts of the country, these changes are evident in a re-organisation of the settlements, renewed burial practices, the building of large-scale monuments, as well as increased militarisation, social stratification and an increase in imported objects.  This thesis addresses an additional aspect of Middle Iron Age societal change, namely an increase in the utilisation of raw materials and resources from forested and coastal landscapes situated beyond the settled farm. These non-agrarian landscapes are commonly referred to as the outlands. In previous research, the increased utilisation of the outlands has in general been understood as part of a Viking Age expansion. The case studies of the thesis suggest that the outlands saw an intensified resource colonisation already during the Middle Iron Age, and that a similar explanatory model can be used to accommodate the parallel developments that appear in the agrarian landscapes as well as the in the outlands. The resource colonisation contributed to a surplus production that seems to have exceeded the needs of ordinary households, along with serially produced items, distributed along far-reaching trade networks in exchange of exotic commodities. The thesis argues that these networks should be interpreted as part of systems connecting distant regions, ranging from the Far East to Arctic Scandinavia. The discussions of the cases studies illustrate interplay between different groups of people – producers and consumers, hunters and farmers – in different parts of the landscape, and how they generated complex, social and economic relations and interdependencies. This in turn resulted in specific cultural patterns in the border area between the boreal forest in the north and the agrarian region in the south.  The main contribution of the study is that it highlights how the main elements of outland exploitation, such as mass production and trade in valuable non-agrarian resources, can be dated earlier than has been previously thought. Moreover, the thesis argues that outland resource colonisation was an important driving force for the societal developments that took place during the Middle Iron Age, and is crucial for our understanding of later time periods