This essay discuss if Bronze Age cult houses were present at Gotland during the Bronze Age. Bronze Age cult houses are a well know phenomenon on mainland Sweden but because of inventory problems no Bronze Age cult houses have been found on Gotland. The main reason for the inventory problems are the Iron Age house foundations that are present in a large number on Gotland, the cult houses and the Iron Age houses have some design details that makes them difficult to separate from each other. In this essay a number of criteria are presented to help separate cult houses from the Iron Age house foundations. Three criteria?s regarding cult houses on Gotland is also presented in this essay.Two house foundations that PhD student Joakim Wehlin, University of Gothenburg and Gotland University, found in Vallstena parish, Gotland, are presented in this essay.

I denna rapport beskrivs en undersökning och jämförelse av två olika sorters segjärn. Detvå materialen som har studerats har varit det segjärnet som används i Parker Hannifinsnuvarande hydraulikmotorer och ett nytt segjärn, vars mekaniska egenskaper har påståttsvara mer fördelaktiga. Målet med arbetet var att få fram en tillförlitlig jämförelse av de olikamaterialen och avgöra om det fanns ett tydligt underlag för att inleda processen av ett byteav material i vissa komponenter i Parker Hannifins produkter.Det utfördes jämförelser mellan de olika materialens mekaniska egenskaper baserade delspå information som redan fanns om materialen och dels på data insamlad vid tester medskärande bearbetning. Förslitning på verktygen vid fräsning studerades tillsammans medskärkraften med olika sorters skärdata. Restspänningar efter ingreppen i de båda materialenmättes med en röntgendiffraktometer.Resultaten gav inga signifikanta indikationer på att ett materialbyte skulle innebära en lägreproduktionskostnad, dock visade analyser att det nya materialet tål att bearbetas fortare ändet traditionella segjärnet och att fler undersökningar bör göras.

The hillforts of Bohusl?n are numerous, yet few have been studied, leaving gaps in our understanding of their dating, morphology, and connections to nearby prehistoric sites. With the help of settlement archaeology, the aim of this study has been to analyse three hillforts on Hisingen and answer these questions. This was done by observing the location and morphology of the hillforts and by analysing the age and functions of nearby prehistoric sites within a kilometer of the hillforts. The results indicate that Bj?rlanda 22:1 and Torslanda 56:1 were likely ritualistic enclosures, while Torslanda 15:1 had defensive functions.

This paper deals with the question of whether the symbolic language of the late Neolithic and middle Bronze Age was transferred from ceremonial monuments and barrows into the domestic sphere in the late Bronze Age. I will consider such elements as doorway orientation, the significance of boundaries and depositional practices to see if Early-Middle Iron Age settlements were indeed a major scene for ritual behaviour..

The aim of this work is to give a broader and more nuanced picture of the use of locks and keys during the Iron Age, in particular the late Iron Age, in the Lake Mälaren region. This has been done by comparing two buildings: the hall on Helgö and the living quarters in the garrison on Birka. Here we can see two very different areas where locks and keys were important parts of the daily life. The study also includes a typology of padlocks based on the findings from the same places as the building study and their surroundings..

This essay concerns the interpretation of house plans in three-aisled longhouses and hall-buildings, in Scandinavia during Iron Age. Full scale house reconstructions need a better basis of interpretations to understand the patterns of roof supporting post holes in excavated house plans. This has led to the thesis, presented here, that the layout of house plans during Iron Age is based on geometrical proportions. In order to prove this, geometric house plans were applied and compared with excavated house plans in 11different case studies, including the fortification of Fyrkat Denmark. It was found that all house plans in the case studies indicate, that the geometrical proportions 1:2, 1:3 and 2:3 of a given circle must have been used for the basic layout of the roof supporting post holes, using a compass and a straightedge.

Bakgrunden till detta examensarbete var att Qumex Materialteknik vid ett flertal tillfällen konstaterat att material av typen SS 0725 har uppvisat bristfälliga härdresultat. Materialet, som är relativt nytt på marknaden, är ett gjutjärn av typen segjärn och utmärker sig gentemot andra segjärn på grund av sitt höga innehåll av kisel. Då segjärn enligt den nu gällande EN-standarden klassificeras efter sina mekaniska egenskaper uppstår ett problem gällande SS 0725. Materialet uppfyller de krav som är ställda för EN-GJS-500-7 och hamnar därmed under samma materialbeteckning som ett segjärn med betydligt lägre kiselhalt. Att två material med olika kemisk sammansättning hamnar under samma beteckning kan innebära problem.

This paper deals with archaeological prospection of an Iron Age farm site in Toland, Fresta parish, Uppland County in Sweden. The purpose of the paper has been to see whether the geophysical methods applied (GPR & EM-38) could produce useful results that could motivate its use in similar surveys in the future. Geochemistry has been used for the purpose of identifying possible activity areas on the site. The results have shown that it is possible with a GPR survey to identify postholes originating from the Migration Period longhouse at the site. The combining of several methods have been important for the identification and interpretation of several areas of interest..

In this bachelor essay an attempt is done, to recreate a probable Bronze Age landscape on Gotland, with GIS as a tool. The landscape on Gotland is situated with many different monuments dated Bronze Age, such as cairns and stone ships. In creating of the maps, two possible shorelines contemporary with the Bronze Age have been calculated and marked on the maps. Furthermore, peat lands have been drawn upon the maps, by using the information from geological maps.A landscape variable have been compared between Bronze Age places and Early Iron Age houses; the soil type. On Bronze Age places gravel is the most common, while moraine marl is the most common on places with Early Iron Age houses.From a selection that were made, all Bronze Age places where within 3 km from the water, either the recreated shoreline or peat land.

Decapitated Vs. Stomach buried ? A study of decapitated people and stomach placed people in Iron Age in Sweden and Denmark. This essay is about decapitated persons in graves and those buried on their stomach in the Iron Age in Sweden and Denmark. The analysis is to compare these graves by six perspectives; location of the grave, construction of the grave, grave goods, sex, age and interpretations of the grave.

In this bachelor essay an attempt is done, to recreate a probable Bronze Age landscape on Gotland, with GIS as a tool. The landscape on Gotland is situated with many different monuments dated Bronze Age, such as cairns and stone ships. In creating of the maps, two possible shorelines contemporary with the Bronze Age have been calculated and marked on the maps. Furthermore, peat lands have been drawn upon the maps, by using the information from geological maps.A landscape variable have been compared between Bronze Age places and Early Iron Age houses; the soil type. On Bronze Age places gravel is the most common, while moraine marl is the most common on places with Early Iron Age houses.From a selection that were made, all Bronze Age places where within 3 km from the water, either the recreated shoreline or peat land.

For some time, there has been a general thought that churches built in the Early Middle Ages in Scandinavia, around the 12th century, directly replaced cult buildings or cult sites from the Late Iron Age. There are archaeologists who have criticized this and were instead skeptical that churches at all were built on places where a pre-Christian cult building existed. Several examples from Scandinavia contradict this and show a continuity of place and cult from the Late Iron Age to the Early Middle Ages. The aim of this thesis is through a spatial analysis, study Late Iron Age archaeological sites in the landscape around thirteen churches located around lake T?kern in the western part of ?sterg?tland, to see if there is a place and cult continuity from the Late Iron Age to the Early Middle Ages at the selected locations.

The intention of this essay is to put the light on and to discuss if there is a connection between a pre-Christian creation mythology and naked rocks on prehistoric sacred places in Scandinavia. Archaeological as well as historical materials are studied. The historical material is mostly from Snorre Sturlasons Asasagan with the explanation of the creation of the world. In this story the world was built from the body of a killed and deposited giant named Ymer. Almost the same myth is told in all Indo-European countries.

This essay is a comparative study on Migration period ring forts, centered on Sandbyborg, a ringfort situated on the southeastern shore of the Baltic island of Öland.Furthermore this essay focuses on the contemporary Iron Age society, and thestrategical implications of the ringforts in their function as fortifications. Certaininternational comparisons are made, in particular regarding the fortifications in theRoman empire..

From embankment dams is something that has long been noticed and given rise to different questions. The most serious question is if the sludge is a result of inner erosion through the dam, and thus consists of material transported from the dam. Concerns have also been raised whether the sludge could interfere with the systems drainage capacity and thereby lead to high pore pressure in the dam, or if the measurement of seepage is disturbed, as the measuring is usually made via Thomson weirs, which could risk being blocked. The result of this investigation shows that the sludge is a result of the oxidation of iron by iron bacteria, and to the greater part consists of these oxides as well as the bacteria?s own structures. The iron oxidizing bacteria, FeOB, oxides ferrous iron to ferric as a part of their metabolism, and thereby create large quantities of iron(oxy)hydroxides.