Early Medieval Times

Regionality, in the specific archaeological sense of the spatial distribution of differences in material culture, has not been a central concern for Iron Age specialists in Norway for several decades. But with its varied topography, its mountains, fjords, rivers and lakes, the country is an obvious place to look for such differences. In the present paper, I have turned my attention to burial customs. As one would expect, there is a myriad of local and regional rites to be found, and some traits might occur all over Norway, and indeed over the whole Germanic area. However, some of these ritual traditions might be limited to a single farm, or even to a single family in some cases, while others are probably associated with distinct tribes or other larger groups. But then there are some ritual traditions which cover substantially larger areas than nature-given settlement districts, but still have a rather limited distribution. I have tried to show that these larger areas concur with the major regions met with in later, written sources dealing with the origins of the Medieval kingdom of Norway.

The present paper deals with a minority of burials in Roman (B-C) and Migration period (D) Norway, namely the ones containing weapons. Its aim is two-folded: 1) to present an overview of this material to non-Norwegian colleagues, and 2) to discuss the significance of the weapon burial rite in its Scandinavian and North European context. Regarding the first, I intend to focus on the chronology, regional distribution and typology of burials with weapons. As for the latter, the emphasis will be on weapon graves as evidence both of the militarisation of barbarian society in general and more specific of warlike relations between the Roman Empire and the northern Germans, particularly the question of Scandinavian auxiliaries in the Roman army.

This study provides the first evidence for the extraction of lead in the later early medieval period in Lancashire, in the North West of England. Archaeological evidence for human activity in the region during the later medieval period is modest, although the material culture that is known supports the historic accounts of settlement by people of Scandinavian origin, which is reinforced by studies of place names and local dialect. Investigation of two upland sites in the western Pennines, on Anglezarke and Rivington moors, indicates that lead was being extracted in the period c.680-1000 cal.AD, most likely from known veins at Lead Mines Clough. The emergence of extractive activity coincides with contact with the Norse who are known from both historic and archaeological evidence to have been present in Lancashire during the later early medieval period.

KEYWORDS
EARLY MEDIEVAL, LEAD, MINING, MINERAL EXTRACTION, MAGNETIC MEASUREMENT, SATURATION ISOTHERMAL REMANENT MAGNETISATION ASSAY, HEAVY METAL (LEAD) ASSAY, METALLURGY, UPLAND, PEAT, LANCASHIRE, ARCHAEOLOGY, ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD, NORSE ARCHAEOLOGY

Based on the new results from recent research on the weapon find from Vimose, Denmark, the aim of this article is to show the variety and development of the sacrificial rites involving weapons during the early Iron Age in Southern Scandinavia.

EXPLORING HOW PLACE was implicated in discourses of power and kingship, this paper investigates the ways in which ideologies and cosmologies informed the production of sacred authority and the iconographies of royal sites in the period c AD 400‐800. This paper pertains to the evolution of early medieval kingship but also that institution’s relationship with prehistoric antecedents. It is suggested that the construction of localised small-scale kingships was as meaningful as those of the more prominent institutions such as Tara and Cashel. Through highlighting a NE‐SW axis redolent in royal landscapes, it is argued that kingship’s relationship with place was central to discourses over power, ideology and the ‘holy man’. This saw the early Irish church appropriate aspects of a cosmological scheme linked to the creation and (re)-imagining of royal sites.

"This paper proposes three new (and tentatively, another two) identifications of sundials in Middle Eastern mosaics of the 5th – 8th century. The author discusses a vignette from the Holy Martyrs’ Church at Tayibat al-Imâm, central Syria, a mosaic panel from the tomb of Georgia and Theodosia in Jerusalem, two
vignettes of Sebastis and Kastron Mefaa from the St. Stephan’s Church at Umm al-Rasas, and a vignette of Jerusalem from the St. George’s Church at Madaba. These mosaics date, respectively, to 442, to the reign of Justinian (527 –565), and to the Byzantine Umayyad era (718). According to the author, these are probably the latest representations of sundials known to date from the Late Antiquity. Until this study, only six representations of sundials on mosaics from the Roman period were known. This paper adds three new items and two hypothetical ones from Byzantine times. It also offers an interpretation of the function of the famous column in Jerusalem, shown on the map of Madaba and the mega-vignette of the Holy City.
Key words: Sundials, Sonnenhuhren, Meridiane, Cadrans solaires, Relojes de sol."

Late antique identities from the Western Balkans were transformed into new, Slavic identities after c. 600 AD. It was a process that is still having continuous impact on the discursive constructions of ethnic and regional identities in the area. Building on the new ways of reading and studying available sources from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the book explores the appearance of the Croats in early medieval Dalmatia (the southern parts of modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina). The appearance of the early medieval Croat identity is seen as a part of the wider process of identity-transformations in post-Roman Europe, the ultimate result of the identity-negotiation between the descendants of the late antique population and the immigrant groups.

See: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14800.html

“impressively interdisciplinary”—Edward Bever, Jrnl of Interdisciplinary History

“comprehensive and enlightening”—Thomas DuBois, JEGP

"an impressive book”—Jenny Jochens, Speculum

“deft use of the full array of sources”—Michael Bailey, American Historical Review

“challenges established views”—Rune Blix Hagen, Historisk tidsskrift

“excellent study of ‘religious’ change”—Nicolas Meylan, Jrnl of Religion

“excellent overview”—Lars Lönnroth, Svenska Dagbladet

“how other shelves in the library of cultural history can be reorganized”—John Ødemark, Arv

“of great value not only to scholars of Scandinavia but to anyone interested in the complex history of European witch-beliefs”—Jacqueline Simpson, Folklore

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Stephen A. Mitchell here offers the fullest examination available of witchcraft in late medieval Scandinavia. He focuses on those people believed to be able—and who in some instances thought themselves able—to manipulate the world around them through magical practices, and on the responses to these beliefs in the legal, literary, and popular cultures of the Nordic Middle Ages. His sources range from the Icelandic sagas to cultural monuments much less familiar to the nonspecialist, including legal cases, church art, law codes, ecclesiastical records, and runic spells.

Mitchell's starting point is the year 1100, by which time Christianity was well established in elite circles throughout Scandinavia, even as some pre-Christian practices and beliefs persisted in various forms. The book's endpoint coincides with the coming of the Reformation and the onset of the early modern Scandinavian witch hunts. The terrain covered is complex, home to the Germanic Scandinavians as well as their non-Indo-European neighbors, the Sámi and Finns, and it encompasses such diverse areas as the important trade cities of Copenhagen, Bergen, and Stockholm, with their large foreign populations; the rural hinterlands; and the insular outposts of Iceland and Greenland.

By examining witches, wizards, and seeresses in literature, lore, and law, as well as surviving charm magic directed toward love, prophecy, health, and weather, Mitchell provides a portrait of both the practitioners of medieval Nordic magic and its performance. With an understanding of mythology as a living system of cultural signs (not just ancient sacred narratives), this study also focuses on such powerful evolving myths as those of "the milk-stealing witch," the diabolical pact, and the witches' journey to Blåkulla. Court cases involving witchcraft, charm magic, and apostasy demonstrate that witchcraft ideologies played a key role in conceptualizing gender and were themselves an important means of exercising social control.

Stephen A. Mitchell is Professor of Scandinavian and Folklore at Harvard University and author of Heroic Sagas and Ballads."

The authors discuss so-called 'maritime place-names' in a Scandinavian, and particularly Norwegian, context. Attention is focused on terms presumably reflecting 'major' maritime activities, and the main hypothesis of our paper is that maritime terms of major importance, sometimes small groups of those, are found at central sites along the coast, and that some of these names might be Medieval or older.

The present article is a survey of the south-east Swedish landscape of Blekinge that seeks to reveal focal areas and the topography of power. The point of departure is the four well-known runic inscriptions in the older Futhark. The time frame of the survey is primarily the first millenium AD

"The Gotlandic picture stone monuments of the oldest type constitute a material manifestation of a “concept” which basically deals with world order and balance, from the single picture to the monument as a whole. This concept is detectable in myths, sagas and material culture alike. Only by paying more attention to the female agents of the sagas is it possible to reach an understanding of the common content of ideas between the different expressions. That the elements play an important role in the sagas is reflected in the setting and execution of monuments and artefacts. Key words: dragon, fire, giantess, hill fort, house, Iron Age, picture stone, spiral wheel, Volsunga Saga, world tree."

IN September 1849 the Norwegian historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810–63) left his hometown Christiania and headed for Edinburgh. The journey was financed by the Norwegian  government and the purpose was to study the medieval monuments, inscriptions and archives in Scotland, Orkney and
London. However, the studies were not intended to merely blow dust off antiquities. Munch wanted to rewrite history. The traces in the British Isles were of utmost importance for Norwegian history and to the Norwegian people. For too long, Danish and English scholars had called all the Vikings ‘Danes’ as if they all came from Denmark. This was in Munch’s opinion misleading when in fact Norwegians had been very active in the British Isles, not least in Scotland and Orkney.

Sosteli, a well-preserved farm with stone house foundations, stone fences and a mound cemetery, is located in a mountainous area in Åseral, Vest-Agder. It is one of several hundred abandoned farms in the region. Sosteli was excavated by archaeologist Anders Hagen in 1947–49. While Hagen’s excavations are well-known, it is lesser known that the National Museum in Denmark participated in and carried out large-scale scientific investigations. “Moselaboratoriet”, at the National Museum, collected a large number of pollen samples under the leadership of Jørgen Troels-Smith. Since 2010 the National Museum and the County Inspectorate of Monuments and Sites in Vest-Agder have cooperated in analyzing and dating the pollen samples. The picture gathered from pollen analysis differs from the one resulting from Hagen’s purely archaeological, object-based chronology, which concluded that Sosteli had been settled only for a short period during the Late Roman and Migration period (c. AD 200–c. 400/450). A C14-dated pollen diagram shows that Sosteli was settled from around the birth of Christ until the 10th century. The Late Iron Age has three main phases: c. 650–c. 800: animal pasture and cultivation of cereals and hemp, c. 800–c. 950: a wetter climate or reduced pasture in wetter areas, but continued cereal cultivation on drier ground, c. 950–c. 1100: a dramatic decrease in the use of the area and no sign of cultivation, combined with a marked return of the forest.

The volume contains a systematic list of all documents and laws issued by Byzantine Emperors in the time between 565 and 867 CE and of all embassies and missions sent beyond the borders of the realm, thus covering relations with all neighbours in the East and in the West. New results in comparison to the earlier edition of Dögler were especially achieved on the basis of a systematic new reading of Arabic (done especially by Alexander Beihammer) and Armenian (by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller) sources. In total, the contribution of J. Preiser-Kapeller covers more than 350 entries on church history as well as the diplomatic relations to Persia, the Caucasus region, Western Turks in Central Asia, Avars, Bulgarians, Franks, Visigoths and Lombards.

See also: http://books.google.at/books?id=JtoidTRKFuUC&pg=PR35&lpg=PR35&dq=Preiser-Kapeller+regesten&source=bl&ots=HkTMjMm1q1&sig=Rq8SIYYzqraORDCyGNk4JHBfcIM&hl=de&sa=X&ei=tnb0Us-iHIHdswb62IC4Bg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Preiser-Kapeller%20regesten&f=false

The Gotlandic picture stone monuments of the oldest type constitute a material manifestation of a “concept” which basically deals with world order and balance, from the single picture to the monument as a whole. This concept is detectable in myths, sagas and material culture alike. Only by paying more attention to the female agents of the sagas is it possible to reach an understanding of the common content of ideas between the different expressions. That the elements play an important role in the sagas is reflected in the setting and execution of monuments and artefacts.

Key words: dragon, fire, giantess, hill fort, house, Iron Age, picture stone, spiral wheel, Volsunga Saga, world tree.

Articolo contenuto in MONACI E CASTELLI NELLA VALLE SUBLACENSE a cura di Giorgia Maria annoscia e Francesca Romana Stasolla.
Nell'articolo sono raccolte sotto forma di scheda sintetica le principali notizie storiche e archeologiche sulle origini del paese di Roviano (Rm) e alcune deduzioni associate.

In the Early Medieval period the Arctic region of Norway, that is that part of the country which is north of the Polar Circle, constituted the northernmost stronghold of European farming culture. This coastal area was called Hálogaland; it was populated by Norse-speaking people practicing arable farming and animal husbandry as well as fishing, more or less in the same way as further south on the Norwegian coast. To the east and north of Hálogaland were vast tracts of land inhabited by indigenous Saami hunters. During the Late Iron Age and Viking period Hálogaland seems very much like a Norse margin, and one with well-established contacts to political and economic centers further south and west. But then there is the case of the eastern imports. Here, Hálogland diverges from the common pattern in most of Norway in the sense that imports from the Baltic and further east and south-east occur regularly in North Norway, unlike in other Norwegian regions. Why is this so, and what kind of contacts were there in the Late Iron Age between Arctic Norway and Eastern Europe?

Oluf Rygh (1833-1899) was a historian, archaeologist and place-name researcher, and he was the academic head of the University's Museum of National Antiquities from 1862 until his death. He is reckoned to be the founder of place-name research, and some archaeologists have singled him out as the person who laid the ground for archaeology as a science in Norway, while others have produced an extremely negative evaluation. He was not often in the field, but his activity has been underestimated. In the county of VestAgder he investigated 15 burial mounds at Stoveland in Mandal (1878) and 47 relics at Spangereid in Lindesnes (1879). The investigations both at Veien in the county of Buskerud and in Vest-Agder were systematic and problem-oriented, especially with respect to burial customs. Unfortunately drawings are lacking, but the reports are so complete that it is possible to reconstruct them. The fact that more recent investigations have led to our having another view of the interpretation of some types of relic is part of the development that has taken place within this area of research.

Forges, long-houses and cooking pits. An Iron Age farmsite at Nannestad:

The article presents the results from a dig at Nannestad, county of Akershus, just North of Oslo. The site was small, yet yielded finds of as much eight long-houses of various sizes and with dates stretching from c. AD250 to c. AD500. Several of the houses may have been contemporary, and thus parts of the very same farm. One of the long-houses has been exceptionally big, but parts of this house had been disturbed by the construction of a school building near by. Probably, this long-house has been c. 50 m long and 8-9 m wide. A total of 70-80 cooking pits were uncovered. More than 20 of these were found within a small part of the site, only c. 6 by 9 m.The layout of this small cooking pit field indicates that the placement of these must have respected standing houses.

Inside another long-house of a more modest size we uncovered traces of metal working in pits filled with charcoal, iron slag, burnt and sintered clay and stones. These must have been forges, and half of the long-house has probably been a smithy. At one point this purpose-specific house had been rebuilt at the same spot. Clay casting molds, iron tuyère, crucibles and a piece of a square-shaped iron rod with holes (No.: "trådjern" - in the article presented as a probable small hammerhead) are among the unusual finds of Roman Iron Age date from this part of the site.

The article briefly discusses the role of the blacksmith in the Iron age society, and so is the probable connection between the smithing and the practice of digging cooking pits. The site shows that this farm at Nannestad must have had a considerable size and several contemporary and purpose-specific buildings, maybe with employed specialized craftsmen. This early traces of smithing are rare in Norway.

See also Reitan 2011 about related finds from the Moi site.

So far, the significance and choice of location of early-medieval silver-hoard deposition sites in western Slavic regions have been interpreted on the assumption that the hoards were to be later recovered. In consequence, practices such as depositing hoards in topographically-distinct zones (elevations, lakeshores, riverbanks and marsh edges), covering them with single stones or stone heaps and concealing them in abandoned cemeteries or settlements have been construed as methods of marking the hiding spots of particular deposits, which would have enabled an easy recovery of the buried valuables in the future.
However, reconstructions of the medieval system of values and perception of space allow a different interpretation of the phenomena observable in the source material. An analysis of the topographic features of hoard deposition sites has demonstrated their remarkable similarity to places which appear in the written sources as boundary marks delimiting medieval land grants. This correlation implies that deposition sites could have been understood in the past as 'sites-signs': expressions of the social perception of space and its limits. As illustrated by numerous examples, this perception was based on magical and religious evaluation of space. The choice of liminal areas for hoard deposition could have therefore depended on their symbolic character, which was rooted in the culturally-determined model of shared meanings and values of the period.
A hypothetical demand for hiding metal deposits in liminal areas invites a reassessment of the function of the deposits themselves. Keeping in mind the sacred chapter of liminal zones, we must allow the possibility that some deposits, contrary to recent assumptions, could have functioned as sacrifices or foundation grants connected with a ritual delimitation of space. On the other hand, the burying of hoards in places marked with the power of sacrum could also have had a magical significance as a practice ensuring a safe preservation of valuables while not in use.
At present, it is impossible to decisively support one of the possibilities presented above. However, whichever motivation is taken to be the case, our considerations lead major conclusion. Namely, contrary to recent assumptions, the process of silver-hoard deposition in the early Middle Ages was not determined exclusively by what we understand today as purely technical factors. The main agent in this process was person who endowed his activities with significance by adhering to a culturally-conditioned system of values and beliefs. The selection of a suitable deposition spot was inherent in the contemporary magical and religious mode of evaluating the world. Not only did the actions performed have a utilitarian dimension but they also expressed the world of symbolic imagery, which is often overlooked in modern analyses. Both aspects merged to form a syncretic unity and they therefore provide the only possible basis for the interpretation of actions performed in the early Middle Ages. In the early medieval world, boulders, barrows, elevations and rivers were not only orientation points informing the depositor about the location of the buried hoard. Endowed with magical and religious values, their significance extended far beyond what we regard as their material aspect.

Fra og med yngre romertid opptrer spinne- eller snellehjul hyppig i kvinnegraver her til lands, og dette forholdet vedvarer helt frem til kristen gravskikk gradvis overtar for førkristen i sen vikingtid. Oluf Rygh presenterte i Norske Oldsager (1885) flere typer av snellehjul av bergart som han plasserte i eldre jernalder, i praksis i folkevandringstid. Tre av disse typene, R167-169, oppfattet Rygh som formet i en dreiebenk. I artikkelen ser jeg nærmere på disse typene med hensyn til datering, opprinnelse og distribusjon. Hovedmengden av disse snellehjulene er av bergart, og samtlige er etter min oppfatning modellert etter importerte forbilder i materialer som bronse, glass og rav. De er dessuten utpreget regionale typer, der tyngdepunktet av funn skriver seg fra Sørvestlandet – fra Rogaland og Vest-Agder.

A basic method in archaeology is to study objects on the presumption that similarity in shape is equivalent to similarity in chronology and meaning. This is often reasonable, even if several scholars throughout history have warned us that a symbol or rite may change meaning while changing context, in space or time (Hodder 1982, van Gennep [1910] 1973). We also assume that the same type of object found at different places signifies some kind of contact between people at the two places, often explained in terms of influence, gift exchange and import. In discussions on the Christiani¬¬sation of Norway, theories concerning stone crosses and cross slabs frequently appear as important contributions to these discussions. While looking into the relevance of this I was, however, surprised to see that similar monuments in northwest Europe are interpreted very differently, both in regards to date and meaning. Norwegian scholars have regarded such monuments from western Norway as testimonies to the Christianisation process, dating roughly from the mid-tenth century to the beginning of eleventh century. Due to a Scandinavian distribution concentrated in the west, these monuments are also seen as the result of an influence from the west, and specifically from the British Isles. Stone crosses in eastern Norway are regarded as different: smaller, later, and located at churchyards. In various parts of the British Isles the date of cross monuments ranges from the eighth to the fifteenth century. But depending on our methods of comparison, we can find similar stone crosses in Germany as well, dated late medieval / early modern, and interpreted as memorial stones. In my own research I have seen similar stone crosses in Russia, and also in eastern Poland. This indicates that chronology, distribution and function is perhaps less obvious than previously thought.
Scandinavia was part of the missionary archbishop’s seat of Hamburg-Bremen from the ninth century, and if this seat had any success regarding its main role, one would expect Scandinavia to have been Christianised from Germany rather than from the west (Tveito 2005). In spite of this, in scholarly publications one frequently sees theories tracing the most considerable Christian influence on Scandinavia as having come from the west (see, for instance, Birkeli 1973, 220-226, Gräslund 2002, 130.135, Lager 2002, Lager 2003). This is not unreasonable, as literary sources also tell us about contacts between Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon Church (Abrams 1995).
All quoted theories may be right, but the discordant observations concerning stone monuments call for further investigations: Could any of the theories concerning material from Germany, the British Isles or Scandinavia be altered by applying a wider, comparative perspective? Regarding the stone crosses, is the link between the British Isles and Norway as clear, and the link between Hamburg-Bremen and Norway equally invisible, as argued? In this article I will investigate these questions, focusing particularly on the stone crosses in Norway and their relation to monuments in other countries. I will do this through a brief presentation of the material, addressing the question of chronology, distribution and the interpretation of the function of these crosses.

... The data fall within three geochemical populations, which are distinguished mainly by their SiO 2 , FeO (total Fe), and MgO content, with the largest group showing the highest precision (Fig. 4). ... Shard no. SiO 2, TiO 2, Al 2 O 3, FeO a, MnO, MgO, CaO, Na 2 O, K 2 O, Total, n. CAT-...

The authors deal with the issues of the beginnings of the parish system in the Czech lands, which formed the prerequisites for a deeper Christianisation of the rural milieu. Based on the distinctive transformations in burials observable in a large part of Bohemia and Moravia, they place the beginnings in the period around 1100 A. D. The evidence of the archaeological sources is confronted with the testimony of the written evidence and critically also with the conception of art historians, who do not suppose a boom of sacral architecture in the rural milieu until the second half of the 12th century and later. The shift of the beginnings of parish organisation further into the past opens a number of historical and methodological questions.