The goals of this essay are to identify rituals and ritual behavior at the department of archaeology and ancient history at Lund University. To do this a series of empirical examinations was conducted. Observations, interviews and polls revealed that some ritual behavior is in fact present. Two types of rituals were identified; the Interaction ritual, as presented by Erving Goffman in the book Interaction ritual, Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, in 1967. The second type of ritual is a ?problem solving? ritual, such as meetings.

The essay's aim is to create an understanding for the act; ritual, and the functions or possible functions in an organisation. Many of the functions attribute to rituals lie in the ritual's double function. A ritual can function both as a practical/functional and a symbolic act. The functionality in a ritual doing is not depending of the "symbolic meaning". The functional value exists there always.

Mainly focusing on the big picture regarding the research concerning the religious sphere in Bronze Age Scandinavia, the research field has been missing out on the smaller picture. The results have a tendency to produce a picture where the big landscape monuments, social structures and cosmology appear in the foreground. This essay is a comment to this phenomena and a methodological and terminological discussion regarding the way in which we as archaeologist?s works with questions about religion and rites. The main task though is to make an attempt in trying to identify the ritual performers and to answer the question whether it's possible or not to do that.

The aim of this study is to better understand the Swedish concept of ?förebyggande socialt arbete?, preventive social work. I have conducted eleven qualitative interviews with different key persons and skaters, together with participant observation. During the process of analyzing the material I have used Randall Collins´ concepts of Interaction ritual chains together with Jean Laves and Etienne Wengers concept of situated learning. The answers could be split up in three areas, first those who regard prevention work as building good things for the future.

In this paper my aim is to understand the trance movement from within as a collective phenomenon. I went to Turkey with my boyfriend David on a trance gathering, a festival called A Total Solar Eclipse Festival. There I did participant observations and interviews.Can Collins theory about Interaction ritual be useful to raise the understanding? And is it fruitful to apply the term collective identity?The collective identity is build up by the festival as Interaction ritual. It generates solidarity, emotional energy and a sense of belonging.In this paper I discuss different categories and symbols that the collective identity contains of.

This essay consider ritual death during the ironage, and through a presentation of historical and archaeological sources. Considered ritual death I think we should study both historical and archaeological sources, to get a vider view and a new perspective. To make the essay easier to understand I have split up the early and the late Iron Age in the discussion. In order to study the ritual death I have shown archaeological examples like bogsacrifices in the early ironage, and decapitated victims in the Viking society. The victims have been considered as slaves by some archaeologist.

This qualitative research study aims to investigate how eight members of the Society of Friends (also known as Quakers) experience a divine presence in their Meeting for Worship. The purpose is also to find out how their identity as Quakers has been created, and to see how they look at their Meeting of Worship when it comes to ritual as a concept.The method used in this study is individual, semi-structured interviews and observations of Meeting of Worship. The results show a relatively homogeneous group of individuals from a secular upbringing who as adults sought out a community where silence is appreciated and used to achieve an experience of a divine presence. Berger and Luckmann's theories of socialization have been applied to the results and the discussion reveals how the secondary socialization has been essential in the process of forming the individual into being a Quaker. There is however one exception, in the form of one participant who grew up in the Society of Friends.

AbstractThe aim of this essay is to understand the view of man as a creature in the Norse culture by studying rituals and ritual actions in conjunction with homicide. The material on which the study is based is called the Icelandic sagas, which are important source of information to the Norse culture. To achieve the purpose, I used a qualitative content analysis and qualitative narrative analysis along with ritual theories based on Roy A Rappaport among others. The questions are for instance:- What ritual actions occur in connection with the homicide, according to the Icelandic sagas? - What are the differences in how individuals are treated in passages where the ritual actions in relation to homicide and homicide cases investigated and why?The results show four different types of ritual acts in relation to homicide.

AbstractThe aim of this essay is to understand the view of man as a creature in the Norse culture by studying rituals and ritual actions in conjunction with homicide. The material on which the study is based is called the Icelandic sagas, which are important source of information to the Norse culture. To achieve the purpose, I used a qualitative content analysis and qualitative narrative analysis along with ritual theories based on Roy A Rappaport among others. The questions are for instance:- What ritual actions occur in connection with the homicide, according to the Icelandic sagas? - What are the differences in how individuals are treated in passages where the ritual actions in relation to homicide and homicide cases investigated and why?The results show four different types of ritual acts in relation to homicide.

This essay studies the funnel-beaker ceramic in connection with the megalith graves in South Scandinavia. In my work I have described the nature of ceramics and looked on the crockery types and ornamentation and then discussed the use of the material in a ritual perspective. In the first part I have focused on the critical aspects you have to think about when you do a study like this one. In the second part of this essay I have done a case study, with the ceramic material, in three passages graves in the area of Falbygden, Western Sweden and studied the ceramic material and the nature of it in South Scandinavia as well. Then in the third I discussed the potential use, there is two, of the ceramic material in general of South Scandinavia and looked at it in a ritual perspective..

AbstractThe aim of this essay is to understand the view of man as a creature in the Norse culture by studying rituals and ritual actions in conjunction with homicide. The material on which the study is based is called the Icelandic sagas, which are important source of information to the Norse culture. To achieve the purpose, I used a qualitative content analysis and qualitative narrative analysis along with ritual theories based on Roy A Rappaport among others. The questions are for instance:- What ritual actions occur in connection with the homicide, according to the Icelandic sagas? - What are the differences in how individuals are treated in passages where the ritual actions in relation to homicide and homicide cases investigated and why?The results show four different types of ritual acts in relation to homicide.

This is a study of Prehistoric musical instruments from Scandinavia and the different meanings they could have had in the Prehistoric society. I have described the different types of possible music instruments and the different categories that they belong to. I have also written about their different functions that could have been for example ritual artefacts, shamanic tools or useful instruments in hunting. Two case studies are also presented in the essay, the Falköpingsflute and the Balkåkradrum..

AbstractThe aim of this essay is to understand the view of man as a creature in the Norse culture by studying rituals and ritual actions in conjunction with homicide. The material on which the study is based is called the Icelandic sagas, which are important source of information to the Norse culture. To achieve the purpose, I used a qualitative content analysis and qualitative narrative analysis along with ritual theories based on Roy A Rappaport among others. The questions are for instance:- What ritual actions occur in connection with the homicide, according to the Icelandic sagas? - What are the differences in how individuals are treated in passages where the ritual actions in relation to homicide and homicide cases investigated and why?The results show four different types of ritual acts in relation to homicide.

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..

This essay is about the burial rites in the passage graves of Falbygden, Västergötland. My questions were: Can the burial ritual be understood by comparing the material culture inside and outside the tombs? What kind of grave offerings did the dead have? Most peculiar are all these beads of amber, what kind of meaning did they have? Was the position of the body a part of the ritual? The time period is the middle Neolithic.I selected four passage graves to investigate: Hjälmars rör (Falköping 3), Rössberga (Valtorp 2), Näs sn 7:2 Kvättak 5:1 and Frälsegården (Gökhem 94).My conclusion was that there are differences between the material culture inside and outside the tombs. Outside the ritual includes fire, inside the material culture are not burned. The material culture outside is more dominant than the finds inside, although the beads of amber are only represented inside and dominates the findings inside.