Fornvännen 2014:1 is now on-line on Open Access. We've had trouble with our on-line archive for more than a month. This was because the UV units, Sweden's largest contract archaeology organisation, moved from the umbrella of the National Heritage Board to that of the Swedish History Museum. The IT folks were super busy with the move, but now they've got Fornvännen's stuff up and running again.
- Sven Kalmring on evidence for contacts with Eastern Europe from the Viking town Hedeby.
- Anne Monikander on Early Iron Age strike-a-light stones.
- Robin Lindblad on Viking Period fishing and sheep breeding at an elite farmstead in the Åland Isles.
- Sıla Sokulu & Bo Ejstrud on dugout canoes.
- Anna Blennow on a Latin inscription on the font of Ausås church in Scania.
- Tobias Bondesson & Lennart Bondeson on a gold figurine from Smørenge on Bornholm (previously discussed here).
- Theres Furuskog on the Swedish East Coast's first rock-art four-wheel wagon (previously discussed here).
- Plus book reviews.
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Some fun reading for the non-specialist. I do wonder about the strike-a-light stones paper; she mentions how the stone type must covary with the carbon content of the steel, and she classifies different colours of the stones, but nowhere is there any kind of chemical analysis of the materials.
Very few of the stones are found together with the iron implement. But you could do a targeted chemical study of those assemblages.
Auså is in Scania
Whoops, thanks!
The line of what this paper is about is found some lines down and not at the top:
"Hur kommer det sig då att en dopfunt i en by
i nordvästra Skåne har en komplex inskrift på latin?
Medeltida dopfuntar har vanligen inga inskrifter,
och de som finns består oftast av korta
böner eller signaturer."
That is the puzzle and perhaps science writers should write their reports more like a detective story or a news story?
Dugout canoes must be good objects for dendrochronology. Add isotopic peculiarities and you can see the region where the tree grew. During their "lifetimes" they might change owners many times, following trade routes.
And dendrotopography! Each area and tree species has its own characteristic base curve. Allows you to identify wood origins.