The early Iron Age in South Scandinavia : social order in settlement and landscape

This book is the first of hopefully two eventually to be produced within the project "The Late Iron Age in South Scandinavia – A Historical Anthropology", sponsored by The Swedish Research Council. As a point of departure for such a project, it may seem odd to start by writing a book about the seven or eight centuries that took society to the second part of the first millennium CE and the period focussed by the project. Nevertheless, so great is the need for synthesis in Scandinavian Archaeology that only on the basis of an overall understanding of EIA society can that of LIA and VA be properly understood. In order to be able to draw what I believe to be the essential conclusion about the change in society during the middle of the first millennium CE, I have focussed on the understanding of the landscape, and the way landscape was used in prehistoric times. These conclusions are cardinal because the second book is supposed to discuss the mentality of the LIA and the way it brought acculturation and Christianity into society before the arrival of the Church, i.e. before the renaissance period of the Viking Age that brought back Roman influence to South Scandinavia. In my opinion, as well as in that of many others, understanding the mid millennium holds the key to understanding LIA and VA. Visiting Egypt 2002 with a number of junior researchers in Egyptology Dr. Sofia Häggman introduced me to the Siwa oasis and the Director of Schools and Chairman of the Heritage Committee Abdallah Baghi. When showed around in the Siwan landscape by Sofia Häggman its sites and the structural similarities between peripheral Roman Period Siwa and the equally peripheral Roman Iron Age Öland became apparent. Eventually, thanks to Siwan hospitality this similarity structured an essential part of the research project behind this book. Foreword 9 Chapter I. The Human Landscape 11 Introduction 13 Once a Lasting Relation 18 The Arbitrary Date 20 Notes 23 Chapter II. The Use of Graves 31 Introduction 33 A Grøntoft Case 44 Graves as a Predicament 48 In-Depth Examples 57 First Conclusion: Why are Graves Needed? 117 Second Conclusion: (1) Cemetery Themes 120 Second Conclusion: (2) The Decked-Out 125 Notes 128 Chapter III. Ordering House and Settlement 137 Introduction 139 The House as Remains 142 The House as a Life Span 156 Understanding Tacitus 160 The House as a Balance 171 Balance as a Common Notion 183 Summing up "Landscape" and the Changing Settlement Order 187 Notes 193 Chapter IV. Building Permanent Villages and Farms 199 Introduction 201 In the Beginning of the Common Era 202 Emancipation and the Economic Turn 222 Vendehøj 229 The New Dwelling Quarters, NDQ 236 The Hall 251 Præstestien 260 The Eketorp Ringfort 271 Conclusion 278 Notes 280 Chapter V. Ordinary Communities 285 Introduction — the Ölandic Example 287 The Siwan Example 298 Qureishet-Zaitun 303 Öland and Siwa 322 Notes 325 Chapter VI. The Landscape of Warfare 329 Introduction 331 Warfare Offerings and Central Places 331 A Close-up of Fyn 340 The Geography of Conflict 348 Maritime Warfare 353 War on Land 361 Battlefield Preserved 364 The Hall at Uppåkra 369 Conclusion 377 Notes 381 Chapter VII. Synthesis 387 Introduction — Two Settlement Landscapes 389 The Loss of Dynamics 399 Landscapes of War 404 The Progress Made 406 Notes 411 Bibliography 413