Aardvarchaeology

The July issue of Fornvännen has come on-line in all its free full-text glory less than six months after paper publication.

• Påvel Nicklasson publishes his second paper on the forgotten early-19th century antiquarian, J.H. Wallman, and relays information about a Late Roman Period snake-head gold ring found in a highly unusual context.
  
• Ny Björn Gustafsson analyses a poorly understood class of Viking Period ironware and builds a case for a chilling functional interpretation: they were slave collars.
  
• Svetlana Vasilyeva, the most Swedish-speaking colleague we have in Russia, discusses the societal background to the Russian-influenced church art of Early Medieval Gotland.
  
• Jens Heimdahl adds a new facet to his wondrously eclectic scholarly repertoire with a grand survey of henbane's (bolmört, Hyoscyamus niger) prehistory and early history as a cultivated plant in Sweden.
  
• Carl Löfving opposes some points in a review of his recent book on Viking Period western Sweden.
  
• Håkan Svensson and Bengt Söderberg explain, with examples, why it's simply not good enough anymore to perform contract excavations without the aid of a metal detector.
  
• Mari-Louise Franzén and Eva Lundwall report on new technical findings about the Gerum cloak, a fine woolen garment from the Early Iron Age.
  
• Anneli Nietenberg reports on studies of a sculpted slab found in the wall of a church in Västergötland.
  
• Andreas Nordberg and Richard Grönwall continue their exploration of the Lake Mälaren area's 4th/5th century chamber graves by presenting two that were excavated decades ago but have not been recognised before.

[More blog entries about archaeology; arkeologi.]