Abstract? ?there is no reason?to assume that prehistorians cannot study ancient symbolism and beliefs. The question remains, however, how best to study symbolism within the material confines of archaeological research?(Fogelin 2007:63)With my essay I would like to bring up the meaning of the soapstonelamp for the Thule culture in Greenland. Humans in the arctic area, from the same in the north of Scandinavia to the inuites in Greenland, have a common way of viewing the world that stems from anemismen.

In the year 2007 the Swedish National Heritage Board released directions for how the contractarchaeology in Sweden should carry out their work. These directions stressed that a differentapproach to the archaeological finds should be used ? that would lead to a higher degree ofselection than before. The purpose of this essay is to find the reason why this change indirections occurred, and this is done by a study of the history of the rescue archaeology inSweden. The other purpose of this essay is to examine if the excavation strategies inarchaeological excavation reports from different times, correlates with the general guidingprinciples for the contract archaeology in Sweden of that time.There are several reasons why the change in directions occurred, but it seems as the mainreasons are practical.

Following paper deals with the questions about prehistorian and medieval settlements in the Mälar Valley and their relations to the historically known hamlets or single farmsteads from the 17th- and 18th-century cadastral maps. Models over settlement development through the period A.D 200 to 1700 done by geographers Ulf Sporrong and Dan Carlsson are tested and compared to the knowledge won by recent archaeological excavations. Is there a connection between the older settlements linked together by dry-stone walls and the late Iron Age settlements? Does the picture differ from the one presented for the Gotland region? How well are the general theories about different settlement development depending on basic natural conditions as for the potentials for cultivation and topography, corresponding to the physical remains?  Are there other factors involved when the settlement structure takes its form?The methods that are used here constitutes mainly of a comparison between different locations in the Mälar Valley that has got a well known prehistory thanks to extensive archaeological excavations. Cadastral maps, soilmaps, topography maps and maps over ancient monuments are intertwined to the same map and analyzed through works in Geographical information systems.The results of this study reveal an interesting suspicion in the continuity-question through the Iron Age.

The purpose of this essay ("Gateway to the Past. An archaeological quality controlled subject gateway as a resource for higher education in Lund") is to examine how a quality controlled subject gateway could increase the quality of the information supply for the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University. The essay gives a brief background to subject gateways and also describes the Department and its subjects (prehistoric archaeology, medieval archaeology, osteology and classical studies) . The essay consists of a questionnaire distributed to parts of the target group as well as an investigation of three particular subject gateways: NordArk, ARGE and The Labyrinth. The essay also contains an exposition of how archaeologists seek information, of the structure of the archaeological subjects and of classification systems for quality controlled subject gateways.

The written sources concerning the process of christianization in Sweden has for a long time been limited to two main texts, Rimberts vita of St. Ansgarius and Adam of Bremen´s History of the bishops of Hamburg. This is due to a rigid source criticism in the beginning of the 20th century, which put other material ? in particular the norse sagas ? out of consideration. The last twenty years however, new questions have been raised concerning the christianization, partly because of new archaeological findings, new interpretations of the significance of runic stones and the recent debate about the formation of the Swedish medieval kingdom.

This essay is a study and analysis of the funnel beaker pottery at Gullarve 1:13 in Väte parish. The purpose of the study is to analyse the chronology of the settlement by determine the distribution, stratigraphic context and the ornamentation of the pottery. Another purpose is to discuss the geographical location of the settlement in the landscape.In this essay a short review of the pottery and the funnel beaker culture as well as a description of the pottery from the archaeological excavation from 1984 at Gullarve 1:13 is presented. Since the documentation of the archaeological excavation from 1984 is missing or is very inadequate, no spatial analysis can be carried out. The distribution of the pottery can?t contribute to the result of the essay, though if possible it probably would have provided some interesting results.

For the Swedish artist Björn Lövin, the personal was a problem. In his first exhibition in Moderna Museet, Lövin observed through the fictitious character Mr. P (for »Personality«) the ruptures in the Swedish welfare state. The exhibition Konsument i oändligheten och Herr P:s penningar (Consumer in Infinity and Mr. P?s Money) (1971) was composed of two environments, through which a veridical working class apartment and a high street with life-sized mannequins and furniture characteristic of its time, visualized the societal discrepancies in the welfare state as well as the art world of the early 1970s.

This thesis concerns the Gotlandic hill-forts (sw. fornborg) situated on a cliff or in an elevated position and which traditionally have been referred to as cliff-forts (sw. klintborg/höjdborg). The study derives from the notion that these monuments, diverse in size and shape, by archaeologists have been viewed and treated as a homogeneous category of ancient remains. The author?s key aim is to challenge this perception by identifying various subcategories from the 28 cliff-forts on the island.Ever since the archaeological discipline initiated the study of cliff-forts in the late 1800s and more or less to present day, the interpretations have been almost solely dominated by explanations of the military and defendable nature of them.

This thesis is a study of how Norse religion and early Christianization is presented in three Swedish museum contexts. Empirical studies of the exhibitions relating to religion have been conducted at The Historical Museum in Stockholm, The Museum of Gotland and Östergötlands Museum and interviews with the museum staff compliment the empirical data. The concept of religion has been problematized to facilitate the analysis. The result of the study is that there are tendencies to make a hierarchical order between the different religions and that Christianity is an organized religion while the Norse religion is semi-organized..

My diploma thesis has focused on creating a proposal for a Viking center in Stockholm that meets the international interest. A building dedicated solely to the Viking heritage. My ambition has been to give the Viking center an architecture that can serve as scenography for its exhibitions and to give the visitors a feel for the Vikings that they have been craving.  A boat-shaped building in tribute to the Vikings boat building skills with curved stems of equal height that gives a familiar silhouette to the city.  A wood building constructed of curved beams and wood columns painted with tar..

By examine cremated remains from graves dated to late Iron Age I wanted to find out what sorts of animals were placed in the graves. But also to see if the animal sacrifices had any connection to the Old Norse religion. The osteological material that were analysed were from both cremated humans and animals and had been dated to Viking Age. The material is from burial ground 59 at Laxare, Boge parish on Gotland. In addition to the human remains, the material contains bones from horse, cattle, sheep/goat, pig, dog, cat, bear, birds and fish.

I detta examensarbete redovisas mitt förslag på utformning av en utomhusutställning på Parken Zoo i Eskilstuna. Studier har gjorts för att försöka reda ut hur målgruppen 3-10-åringar kan stimuleras och ledas genom utställningen. I arbetet ingår även en lekfull gestaltning av 16 utställningskomponenter i form av bostäder åt vanligt förekommande sörmländska djur.För att samla in data och kunskaper har flera observationer gjorts på barn i lekmiljöer. Jag har även gjort en introspektion och samlat data genom regelbunden kontakt med Parken Zoo. Studierna har visat att barn tycks lockas av lekredskap som inbjuder till aktivitet och att leken ofta sker i rumsligheterna mellan redskapen.

How do museums work with plurality in their organizations and in the production of exhibitions and other activities? This paper examines how civic museums, provincial museums and state museums work with plurality from a perspective of culture policies, particularly in relation to the government bill Tid för kultur, issued by the Swedish government in 2009.All together I examine 25 museums and their efforts to include marginalized groups in their activities and exhibitions. To do so I have studied four possible measures that are available for the museums. This includes the following: projects that pay attention to a marginalized group or their living conditions; projects that are specifically created for a marginalized group; projects that include a marginalized group in the museums preparations; and projects were museums give full responsibility to a marginalized group. I have also examined how plurality have been presented ? as isolated cultures and cultural expressions or as hybrids and interchangeable phenomenons ? and to what extent the museums are ready to involve marginalized groups in their physical environment and in their exhibition and activity programs.

This essay examines how the critical reception of French nouveaux réaliste-artist Raymond Hains 1961 exhibition La France déchirée has been articulated at two historically separate occasions.In her 2010 book Nouveau Réalisme, 1960?s France and the Neo-avant-garde, art historian Jill Carrick examines the fundamental impact the founder of nouveau réalisme ? French art critic and theorist Pierre Restany ? has had on the movement?s historical reception. According to Carrick Restanys writing established an interpretive framework that remained more or less intact for several decades. In addition to a closer analysis of the movement?s critical reception during the 1960s?, Carrick provides a set of new, alternative readings of a number of nouveaux réaliste artworks, which all originates from a position outside of Restanys interpretive framework.

To increase the quality and the cost-efficiency of contract archaeology in Sweden a revisedregulation for contract archaeology was established the 1st of January 2008. By including findstrategy as a concept with special demands in the regulation the Swedish Heritage Board is nowhoping that the conservators will be integrated earlier in the archaeological process and that theunpremeditated find accumulations will stop. This is making the competition between thearchaeological companies even harder. The questions are how the regulation have affected therole of the conservators in the field of contract archaeology today, what is affecting theintegration and the situation, and what can the different stakeholders do to make the collaborationbetween archaeologists and conservators more professional? The conservators are now hopingthat this is the change that will increase the collaboration with the archaeologists, which isimportant for the finds prosperity and the drive of information.To get an updated and generalised view of the impact of the regulation so far, phoneconversations and questionnaires were carried out with archaeologists, conservators, employees atcounty administrative boards and the Swedish Heritage Board.