During an excavation at Old Uppsala 571 raw garnets was found. In comparison with similar fragments from other sites in Sweden my aim was to prove a completely domestic production of garnets for cloisonné work. I have chosen to look at the archaeological sites of Old Uppsala, Valsta, Slöinge and Paviken and more closely at the material from Old Uppsala and Valsta. My theoretical framework has been to look at the garnets own agency in the contemporary society.Garnet cloisonné was a popular jewellery form during the Merovingian period on the continent although it came to an end in the early 7th century. It was during this time in Scandinavia a new sort of garnet, technique and paste was introduced and the garnet cloisonné was profoundly used for the gear of the elite and ritual objects.

The Christianisation of Sweden is not much about religion. Instead, there is much to be gained by looking at it as a colonial situation with changing social identities and power structures. This is evident by the prevalence of hybridisations in the archaeological material.Some of the material categories that show the clearest example of changes are the burials from the 9th century up until about AD 1200. This is exemplified by two different Iron Age burial sites in Stockholm county, Uppland, Sweden: RAÄ 59, Valsta, in Norrsunda parish and RAÄ 40, Lilla Ullevi, in Bro parish; They both show hybridisation by involving older elements with newer ones during a time period when the church was not quite established in the region yet.The Christianisation of Sweden is a colonial situation, but the research tradition has often also used a colonial lens from the 19th and early 20th century in its approach to the period. This means that the same questions, interpretations and conclusions, often based on written sources, have been continuously reused for a long time, which has had consequences for the archaeology in Sweden..