| 1. |
- Fraser, Magdalena
(författare)
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People of the Dolmens and Stone Cists : An archaeogenetic Investigation of Megalithic Graves from the Neolithic Period on Gotland
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The study of ancient genomics of pre-historic human remains has in recent years offered unprecedented knowledge regarding pre-historic migration and population structure on the European continent which has fundamentally altered the current views in the archaeological community. However, the merging of the two fields, archaeology and genetics, is still in its infancy and much work is still needed in order for these fields to integrate. In this thesis I explore how genetic analyses, in combination with contextual radiocarbon dating and isotopic analyses for diet and mobility can be used to investigate demographic events on a local and regional level. This is done through the investigation of people buried in five previously excavated megalithic tombs on the Island of Gotland dated to the Neolithic period. I present the genomic population structure and archaeological background for the pre-historic European reference data and show how this is used to investigate population continuity, demographic shifts, cultural duality, and admixture for local and regional contexts. I present new data and explore the Strontium-baseline for the Gotland biosphere which is used for the mobility analyses. I show that mitochondrial haplogroup data is especially useful in combination with isotopic data, and radiocarbon dating for investigation of demographic shifts on a larger scale. I also show that genomic data gives unique insights into the individuals’ life history which, together with the established demographic background allows for fine scale investigation of population demographic events within and between different archaeological contexts. Finally I show that the different Neolithic contexts on Gotland to a large extent involves immigration of new groups to the island, and that the contextual breaks seen in the archaeological record during the Neolithic period are connected with cultural and population demographic shifts. This dissertation demonstrates that genomic analyses, in combination with archaeology and isotopic analyses, as well as contextual osteological analyses and radiocarbon dating, present unique insights into the life history of the actual people who lived the lives we try to understand.
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| 2. |
- Hallgren, Fredrik, 1968-
(författare)
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Identitet i praktik : Lokala, regionala och överregionala sociala sammanhang inom nordlig trattbägarkultur
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis discusses the introduction of cultural practices such as cultivation, cattle herding, pottery craft and specific lithic traditions in the region around the Baltic Sea during the Stone Age. The main focus is on the Early Neolithic (4000-3300 cal. BC) Funnel Beaker Culture of Mälardalen and Bergslagen in eastern Central Sweden. Archaeological material from neighbouring parts of Scandinavia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, northern Poland and northern Germany are also included in the discussion. The thesis does not attempt to explain why practices like agriculture and ceramic production were introduced, rather it discusses when and how they took place. The archaeological material is discussed as remains of activities like living, crafting, cultivating, herding – cultural practices that were created through participation and performance. It is argued that participation in these activities shaped aspects of the participants' identity.
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| 3. |
- Ojala, Carl-Gösta, 1972-
(författare)
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Sámi Prehistories : The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in Northernmost Europe
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Throughout the history of archaeology, the Sámi (the indigenous people in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in the Russian Federation) have been conceptualized as the “Others” in relation to the national identity and (pre)history of the modern states. It is only in the last decades that a field of Sámi archaeology that studies Sámi (pre)history in its own right has emerged, parallel with an ethnic and cultural revival among Sámi groups. This dissertation investigates the notions of Sámi prehistory and archaeology, partly from a research historical perspective and partly from a more contemporary political perspective. It explores how the Sámi and ideas about the Sámi past have been represented in archaeological narratives from the early 19th century until today, as well as the development of an academic field of Sámi archaeology. The study consists of four main parts: 1) A critical examination of the conceptualization of ethnicity, nationalism and indigeneity in archaeological research. 2) A historical analysis of the representations and debates on Sámi prehistory, primarily in Sweden but also to some extent in Norway and Finland, focusing on four main themes: the origin of the Sámi people, South Sámi prehistory as a contested field of study, the development of reindeer herding, and Sámi pre-Christian religion. 3) An analysis of the study of the Sámi past in Russia, and a discussion on archaeological research and constructions of ethnicity and indigeneity in the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union. 4) An examination of the claims for greater Sámi self-determination concerning cultural heritage management and the debates on repatriation and reburial in the Nordic countries. In the dissertation, it is argued that there is a great need for discussions on the ethics and politics of archaeological research. A relational network approach is suggested as a way of opening up some of the black boxes and bounded, static entities in the representations of people in the past in the North.
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| 4. |
- Edenmo, Roger, 1960-
(författare)
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Prestigeekonomi under yngre stenåldern : Gåvoutbyten och regionala identiteter i den svenska båtyxekulturen
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis identifies and discusses some fundamental changes that took place during the middle neolithic period in Sweden, with the introduction of the Boat Axe Culture. The possibility of intrepreting the Corded Ware Cultures by way of networks, identified through the regional designes of battle axes, are proposed. With the aid of a reconsideration of the typology of the Swedish boat axes, ethnographic examples of gift-exchanges, and a theoretical reappraisal of the implications of archaeological praxis for prehistorc life-worlds, new possibillities for interpreting the changing role of such prestige items as the boat-axes are presented. A new chronological scheme is also presented for the Swedish boat axes, with a tripartite division of the latter middle neolithic into MN BI-III. The value of the boat axe is further considered to be explicable only in terms of a prestige item, dependent on a system of exchange for its continual valuation. Central to this discussion is the relationship between value and exchange. Several regions within the Swedish Boat Axe Culture are identified, and the boat axes in two of these regions in the southern part of the Mälar valley are thoroughly examined. It is shown that during the cours of the Boat Axe period, the emphasis gradually changed from a regional to an intra-regional focus concerning the development of types and special designes of the boat axes. Identified similarities and dissimilarities of contemporary boat axes within and between regions are explained as a result of a parallel change in gift exchanges, from a regional focus to an intra-regional focus. An hierarchical ordering of the latter middle neolithic soceity is also identified, where only a portion of the boat-axes were selected as burial gifts. This development is chartered onto the broader neolithic development in Sweden, with special focus on the role of prestige items such as battle axes. A fundamental change is identified as taking place during the Boat Axe period, when the full implications of a prestige economy were implemented and the major strategies for power settled on the inter-regional level.
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| 5. |
- Hagström Yamamoto, Sara, 1974-
(författare)
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I gränslandet mellan svenskt och samiskt : Identitetsdiskurser och förhistorien i Norrland från 1870-tal till 2000-tal
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis studies the representation of prehistory as a part of the making and remaking of ethnic identities in Northern Sweden from the end of the 19th Century until today, thus dealing with archaeology and prehistory in relation to issues such as identity, memory and politics.The thesis takes as its point of departure the constitution of a Swedish national identity and memory in the late 19th Century and subsequent decades, followed by studies of, mainly later, representations of Sámi, Kvenish (“Kvänsk”) and North Bothnian (“Norrbottnisk”) collective identities. The study material consists of texts, primarily analyzed through discourse and narrative analysis.The thesis demonstrates how the constitution of a Swedish national identity in Northern Sweden constructed a dichotomy between an imagined civilized “Swedishness”, belonging to the future, and an imagined primitive Sámi Other, belonging to the past. It is argued that this discursive boundary work has not just situated some persons and their everyday life in a marginal position as a visible Sámi Other, but has also situated a substantial number of the inhabitants of Northern Sweden more or less in liminality and marginality in relation to the national identity structure. This has created a need for people to officially represent a more satisfactory collective identity, which includes a rewriting of the prehistory of the area.The last chapter relates the results to studies of similar cases in colonial and postcolonial contexts outside Europe. The essentialist view of identity and history present in several of the studied representations is also discussed. The thesis emphasizes the importance of a more nuanced view of relationships of ethnicity, domination and subordination, and the associated formation of collective memories, in Northern Sweden. Discourses of ethnicity and domination often function through simplifying dichotomies, but dichotomies alone cannot explain real conditions and consequences of these matters.
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| 6. |
- Kjällquist, Mathilda, 1971-
(författare)
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Kulturkontakter i Sydskandinavien under mesolitikum : Hantverkstraditioner, råmaterialval och mobilitet för 9000 år sedan, med utgångspunkt från Norje Sunnansund i Blekinge
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to investigate different scales of mobility and social networks in Southern Scandinavia around 7000 BC. An essential basis for this work is the hypothesis that the conical core pressure blade technology, a specific method for producing lithic blades, reached Scandinavia from the east. The process has been discussed and verified in several earlier studies.The study is based on investigations of lithic material and bone tools, as well as human skeletal remains; a multidisciplinary strategy has been applied, which combines technological analyzes of archaeological material with isotope analyzes of human teeth. Materials and data have been collected from a total of 111 sites located mainly in Scandinavia, but also in Finland, the Baltic countries and Russia. The Mesolithic site Norje Sunnansund in Blekinge, southern Sweden is in focus.Analyzes of the chaîne opératoire of lithic and osseous production make it possible to study technological processes as the transmission of culturally conditioned patterns; these patterns underlie the formative principles of each technology complex. By identifying specific traditional knowledge built into the material process, it becomes possible to define prehistoric human traditions and thereby study human interactions and migrations between geographical regions. The analyzes of strontium isotopes in human teeth from Norje Sunnansund enables an additional individual provenancing since the isotopes reflect a geographical-geological variation.The study provides a higher resolution of the arrival and spreading of the pressure blade technology from the northeast. It also strengthens the picture of a Mesolithic society in Southern Scandinavia based on geographically extensive social networks. An increased regionalization and territorialization has previously been proposed for western Scandinavia around 8800-7500 BC. The study confirms that during this period the population seem to consist of several subgroups related to specific territories, but with close and regular contact within a more extensive social network. This fits well with the picture of a group that may have inhabited Norje Sunnansund for extended periods, while social contacts were maintained over longer distances.
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| 7. |
- Vogel, Pierre, 1964-
(författare)
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Vardagslivets aktiva oförändring : En studie av kultur genom arkeologi och stenåldersboplatser
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The study of the Mesolithic has a long tradition. Two central areas of this tradition are: the spatial organisation of sites as an archaeological category, and hunter-gatherers as a theoretical concept. The thesis addresses tradition, both regarding the history of archaeology itself, and as a way to enable a link between cultural process and space as an archaeological source: Spatial patterns can thus be understood as materialized normative behaviour, where day-to-day action has been repeated because it was carried by historically conditioned institutions. Concepts such as everyday routines, institutions and disciplinary technology form the basis of four case studies where they meet the archaeological record by studying the relationship between autonomous units. The first case study uses correspondence analysis to examine whether and how, sites with a normative spatial pattern, differs from other types of sites in the landscape. The second case-study utilizes the concept of disciplinary technology, which implies the power of materiality to create and conserve structures over time. The excavations of Lasse's hut in Vuollerim and the detailed documentation of the parallel Norpan 2, gave the opportunity to explore specific topics about the house as a template for social practice. In the third case, a long-term perspective is applied on the relationship between units. The primal idea is that usually inarticulate norms, in situations of uncertainty, such as shifts between epochs, require reinforcement in order to survive and therefore also leave visible material traces. The topic for the fourth case-study is whether the material remains structured in space is relevant for more specific questions about the relationship between units. With the concept of “value”, the sites in Vuollerim are investigated as arenas for social negotiation, through a study of quartz-scrapers.
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