Sig Sørensen 2025 Did the Egtved girl feel homesick

Bronzization.Essays in Bronze Age Archaeology edited by Heide W. Nørgaard and Samantha S. Reiter Archaeopress, 2025

processes unfolded during the Bronze Age in Scandinavia creating both diversity and homogeneity. How did processes of change in one region of southern Scandinavia impact other regions? What kept together the different regions of Scandinavia within a shared Nordic idiom; how much was shared, and how much was different? These questions lead on to the integrating role of ideology: how did ritual display change direction during the Bronze Age, and what were the implication of these processes for social and political change? It is demonstrated that when contradictions arose during the Late Bronze Age, between an unsustainable economic practice and existing social and political practices, religious ontologies were mobilised in an expansive ritual display to suppress social and economic reform. Instead, elites increasingly separated themselves in larger kingdoms or super chiefdoms where social connections were with other elites, rather than with the commoners who were impoverished and suppressed

Danish Journal of Archaeology

The preservation of organic and human remains in Early Nordic Bronze Age mounds (1700 BCE -1100 BCE) permits new provenance work on this important period. Studies have shown that different mobility/non-mobility patterns were exercised by elite women during this time. To extend the database, we conducted strontium isotope analyses of the enamel from the second and third molars from the elite female grave from Ginderup in Thisted County, Denmark. Among other items, this grave included the textile remains of a possible corded skirt or fringed blanket. We complemented analyses of this woman’s enamel with strontium isotope analyses of the first molar from Grave B as well as osteological analysis of the individuals from Early Nordic Bronze Age Graves A, B and C. Our results revealed that the strontium isotope ratios obtained from the woman wearing a possible corded skirt yielded one local ratio (M2) and one non-local ratio (M3). The results from Grave B yielded a ratio which falls within ...

Bronzization. Essays in Bronze Age Archaeology in Honour of Dr. Phil h.c. Helle Vandkilde on her 70th birthday (ed. by H.W. Nørgaard & S.S. Reiter), 2025

The discovery of the Varpelev Boat in 1973 was an archaeological sensation which attracted significant attention from both the media as well as scholars. In consultation with specialists, Køge Museum initiated a salvage operation and conservation plan. However, the process faced setbacks, which led to the boat's deterioration. In 2005, a rescue operation enabled its re-conservation, which was completed in 2016. The boat was transferred to the Viking Ship Museum in 2017. The boat, dated to 1220-788 BC, was partially preserved. It had a flat 'platform' at the aft end, hewn from the trunk's root, and featured three hewn-out ridges inside. It measured c. 12.4 m in situ, with reconstructions estimating its original length to be about 13 meters, c. 50 cm high, and weighing c. 1300 kg. During the boat's era of use, sea levels were higher, making the river valley, in which the boat was found, a navigable brackish fjord. This suggests that the Varpelev Boat was part of a broader maritime transit network. It would have served as a cargo and crew carrier in a key geographical area in which sea and land routes intersected. This is furthermore supported by the boat’s design, which shows similarities to other watercraft from the period. A new research project (2024 to 2025), aims to provide deeper insights into the boat's construction and its role in Bronze Age maritime networks, utilizing dendrochronology and 3D reconstructions. The project is a collaborative effort with plans for a scientific publication and a temporary exhibition to showcase the boat's historical and technological significance.

Bronzization: Essays in Bronze Age Archaeology, 2025

The building tradition in southern Scandinavia underwent a dramatic change in the centuries from the middle of the Late Neolithic (LN) to the end of the Early Nordic Bronze Age (NBA). This development is particularly evident in the archaeological record from Jutland, Denmark, that offers interesting insights into, among other things, the transition from the two-aisled to the three-aisled building tradition (from LN II-NBA III, 1950-1100 BCE). Currently, there are multiple examples of excavated houses dating to LN II and NBA I that demonstrate experimentation with the three-aisled architectural style while the two-aisled tradition was still dominant. There are several examples of houses that combine both architectural styles, a form of hybrid house style, as well as houses built in a fully developed three-aisled style from this transitional period, which spans from LN II (c. 1950 BCE) until the start of NBA II (c. 1500 BCE). After this date, almost all longhouses were built in the three-aisled style. The three-aisled longhouses from NBA II and the beginning of NBA III (1500-1200 BCE) tend to be monumental in size. In Jutland, most of these are built in the timber-intensive bole-walled technique. Whereas the large two-aisled longhouses from LN and NBA I seem to be concentrated in the central and eastern parts of southern Scandinavia, the monumentalisation of house construction moved westwards to Jutland in NBA II. Central and south Jutland in particular stand out with their concentration of large three-aisled bole-walled houses that were contemporary with a network of barrow lines that represented important prehistoric routeways. There is thus a clear link between monuments and political influence.

In: H. W. Nørgaard/S. S. Reiter (Hrsg.), Bronzization: Essays in Bronze Age Archaeology (Bicester 2025) 313–322.

Bronzization Essays in Bronze Age Archaeology edited by Heide W. Nørgaard and Samantha S. Reiter, 2025

This paper adopts a three-tiered scale in its study of the southwestern region of Lista – a polity that is an integral part of the Nordic Bronze Age and a pivotal point and bottleneck in maritime communication from north to south. A study of one community (Vanse) demonstrates that most elements of a Bronze Age complex farm society are potentially present: the farm and farmhouse, mortuary structures, wetland deposits, places of power and potential military control and a harbour. The final tier is the field at Penne. Though best known for the Late Bronze Age rock art and Early Iron Age farm complexes, fragments of evidence suggest a chronologically deep and extensive use of the landscape including agriculture, mortuary practices, production (metallurgy) and ritual.

Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 2023

Traditionally, the maritime networks controlling long-distance trade in metals and other commodities during the European Bronze Age have been understood as expressions of male elite power and dominance. This orthodox model forms a biased and excluding stance of social practice, and makes redundant attempts to discuss critically alternative models of gender-based power-relations in long-distance trade and communication. This study intends to revaluate the notion of androcentric, unilateral patriarchal power relations in maritime trade and warfare, ultimately suggesting an alternative heterarchical model, emphasising the coexistence of heterogeneous power-relations that include women as active social agents and movers of change. The geographical area referred to in particular is Scandinavia but the Mediterranean area is also included. The analysis focuses essentially on graves of the so-called ship setting type. Both men and women are represented in their materials, signalling power and control in the maritime sphere. So far, the female presence has not been discussed in terms of power and control, only in terms of representation. Finding burials of women in these monumental graves in the maritime landscape supports the groundbreaking proposal that, during the Bronze Age, women were also participants in maritime activities.

Bronzization. Essays in Bronze Age Archaeology, 2025

Globalisation is characterised not only by long-distance exchange by commodities and people, but also by a microbial unification of the world (une unification microbienne du monde), as was described by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie in the 1970s. Proof of microbial unification can be seen through the dramatic consequences of the Black Death in the 14th century CE as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, which is still fresh in our memories. Contemporary globalisation which pushed forward and was boosted by industrialisation in the 19th century, resulted in modernisation and scientific advances. It also increased socioeconomic differences within and between states and populations. Countries that pushed industrial development generally represent today’s strongest economies, which also exhibit the highest life expectancies at birth. For Sweden, the phenomenon resulted in a drastic decrease in infant mortality and a simultaneous increase in average adult male statures (180.5 cm) as Sweden transformed from a poor agricultural to an industrialised society with one of the world’s highest income rates per capita (GDP) today. At the same time, Malawi, a country with one of the lowest GDP in the world, has average adult male statures 15 cm lower than those in Sweden. Thus, globalisation has substantially affected several different parameters of health and lifeways, both for individuals as well as for overall populations. Although on a lesser scale, the intercommunity contact and development associated with the transition to the Bronze Age share many traits with contemporary globalisation. This phenomenon – which Helle Vandkilde coined ‘bronzization’ – is, thus, potentially cojoined with several changes in living conditions for both single individuals as well as for populations throughout Europe. Through recent advances in biomolecular archaeology and osteological analyses of pathological lesions, demography and stature, in the following I explore how bronzization affected health and lifeways in southern Scandinavia over the transition of the 3rd to 2nd millennium BCE.

PLOS ONE, 2021

Changes in funerary practices are key to the understanding of social transformations of past societies. Over the course of the Nordic Bronze Age, funerary practices changed from inhumation to cremation. The aim of this study is to shed light on this fundamental change through a cross-examination of archaeometric provenance data and archaeological discussions of the context and layouts of early cremation graves. To this end, we conducted 19 new provenance analyses of strontium isotopes from Early Nordic Bronze age contexts in Thisted County and Zealand and Late Bronze Age contexts from Thisted County and Vesthimmerland (Denmark). These data are subsequently compared with data from other extant relevant studies, including those from Late Bronze Age Fraugde on the Danish island of Fyn. Overall, the variations within our provenience data suggest that the integration and establishment of cremation may not have had a one-to-one relationship with in-migration to Nordic Bronze Age Denmark. ...

The Baltic in the Bronze Age. regional patterns, interactions and boundaries (eds: D. Hofmann, F. Nikulka, R. Schumann), 2022

Whole volume open access at: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-baltic-in-the-bronze-age