Archaeology
Category archives for Archaeology
Another Gold Foil Figure Die from Zealand
Posted by Martin R on February 1, 2013 
Another one of the rare production dies for 6/7/8th century gold foil figures has come to light, again on Zealand! This is an unusual design depicting a lady from the front. She’s wearing a long dress, a cloak and two bead strings. She seems to be cupping her hands around a ring at her abdomen.…
Fornvännen’s Summer Issue On-Line
Posted by Martin R on January 25, 2013 Read it all on-line, Open Access! Lars Larsson presents some Late Palaeolithic antler artefacts from Scania. Olle Andersson makes and tests lots and lots of spearheads to investigate how the Iron Age ones found at Uppåkra got all bent and curled up. Helmer Gustavson announces the confession of the man who faked the Sigtuna runic…
New Dates for the Bronze Age
Posted by Martin R on January 23, 2013 When I was an undergrad in 1990 we were taught that all six periods of the Scandinavian Bronze Age were 200 (or in one case 300) years long. The most recent radiocarbon work shows that they all had different lengths and were more likely 130-280 years long. And the periods with the most abundant metalwork…
Best Danefae of 2012
Posted by Martin R on January 18, 2013 Most prosperous countries have legislation for what kinds of archaeological finds a citizen has to hand in to the authorities. In Denmark, still using a Medieval term, such finds are termed danefae, “property of the dead”. And here is Danish TV4′s list of the top-10 such finds of 2012. All but one of them have…
Recent Archaeomags
Posted by Martin R on January 14, 2013 Current Archaeology #273 (Dec) has an interesting feature on an 18th century ship of the line found hidden as a construction kit under the floor of a workshop at a naval dockyard in Kent. The timbers were re-used, but not in an economically or structurally rational way. Instead the greatest possible amount of ship’s timbers…
Hindawi: Another Dodgy OA Publisher
Posted by Martin R on January 9, 2013 Hot on the heels of the hapless Science Publishing Group, I have received solicitation spam from another dodgy OA publisher, Hindawi Publishing in Cairo, with another odd on-line archaeology journal. The Journal of Archaeology has 71 academics on its editorial board. And a strangely generic name. What it doesn’t have is any published papers yet,…
Valkyrie Figurine From Hårby
Posted by Martin R on January 7, 2013 
Etymologically speaking, ”valkyrie” means ”chooser of the slain”. The job of these supernatural shield maidens in Norse mythology is to select who dies on the battlefield and guide their souls to Odin’s manor, where they will spend the afterlife training for the Twilight of the Gods, the final battle against the forces of chaos. After…
Archaeology Should Resist Newswire Relevance
Posted by Martin R on December 25, 2012 In recent years there’s been increasing numbers of archaeological research projects that reference climate change as part of what they want to study. This is at the same time wise and a little silly. It’s wise because science should serve the concerns of society, and because if you want research funding it’s a good idea…
Finding And Classifying Forgotten Sites
Posted by Martin R on December 6, 2012 
I haven’t blogged much about my research lately. One reason is that I am only working with it at ~50% this academic year since I’m teaching in addition to my usual 25% editor’s job. Another is that I’m in an intensive desk-based data collection phase, which gives rise to a lot of hypotheses and hunches…
Danish Journal of Archaeology
Posted by Martin R on December 5, 2012 Mads Dengsø Jessen of the National Museum of Denmark wrote me to say that he and his colleagues are re-launching the old Journal of Danish Archaeology (1982-2006) as Danish Journal of Archaeology at Taylor and Francis On-Line. Three papers will hopefully come on-line before Christmas, and further ones will see rolling electronic publication from then…
