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37 studies of the adoption of Christianity across northern Europe over1000 years, and the diverse reasons that drove the process. In Europe, the cross went north and east as the centuries unrolled: from the Dingle Peninsula to Estonia, and from the Alps to Lapland, ranging in time from Roman Britain and Gaul in the third and fourth centuries to the conversion of peoples in the Baltic area a thousand years later. These episodes of conversion form the basic narrative here. History encourages the belief that the adoption of Christianity was somehow irresistible, but specialists show theunderside of the process by turning the spotlight from the missionaries, who recorded their triumphs, to the c...
Following from themes explored during the 2005 International Medieval Congress on ‘Youth and Age’, this interdisciplinary volume focuses upon social, cultural and biological aspects of being young and old in the medieval north. The contributors progress definitions of young and old in the north, taking into account changing mentalities as a result of political and cultural transformations such as the Christianisation of the north. This book invites discourse on youth and age amongst medieval archaeologists, historians, and philologists, while introducing particularities of medieval research to sociologists and gerontologists working within other periods and areas. The contributors, representing both established and up-and-coming scholars in the field, showcase the diverse issues that surround interdisciplinary studies of youth and age. Contributors are Christina Lee, Lotta Mejsholm, Berit J. Sellevold, Anna Hansen, Bernadine McCreesh, Joanna A. Skórzewska, Nic Percivall, Carolyne Larrington, Philadelphia Ricketts, Jordi Sánchez-Martí, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Shannon Lewis-Simpson, Ármann Jakobsson, and Yelena Sesselja Helgadóttir Yershova
A major reassessment of the vikings and their legacy The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships to explore. The Age of the Vikings tells the full story of this exciting period in history. Drawing on a wealth of written, visual, and archaeological evidence, Anders Winroth captures the innovation and pure daring of the Vikings without glossing over their destructive heritage. He not only explains the Viking attacks, but also looks at Viking endeavors in commerce, politics, discovery, and colonization, and reveals how Viking arts, literature, and religious thought evolved in ways unequaled in the rest of Europe. The Age of the Vikings sheds new light on the complex society, culture, and legacy of these legendary seafarers.
Exploding the traditional myth that view queens as simply an appendage to the king, these essays explore the social and cultural constructions of female power. This volume does more than merely identify and describe queens, but rather, offers its readers an understanding of the roles of these 'dominant women', situated within archaeological discourse that change our assumptions about female-ruled societies. Examining the ancient societies in Asia, North and South America, Europe and Africa, the authors explore the powerful positions held by queens, as well as the role that gender played in their kingdoms. Spearheading the notion that 'women's work' is not the same in all cultures, the contributions in this volume compel readers to rethink gender relationships and ideology in our cultures.
Possessors of a widely recognized, positively valued and well-underpinned brand, archaeologists need to take more seriously the appeal of their work and its relationship to society and popular culture.
In this volume, fourteen authors representing different academic fields and traditions present their work on children in past societies: how to recognise children in the archaeological record, the conditions of their lives and deaths and how they may have been perceived by their contemporaries. The case studies, from a number of European sites, cover a time-span from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. A central theme in many of the contributions is socialisation and education as part of identity-forming processes. What was it like to be a child in Palaeolithic times? How did the Early Medieval Church approach the teaching of children? Socialisation is a theme echoed also in the two papers ...
This volume summarizes 30 years of fieldwork in Denmark, some of the evidence for the spread of agriculture and the Neolithic into Scandinavia and some opinions about the origins of agriculture. It is intended to be both academic and personal and to describe the actual process of research, because most projects involve elements of both. There is an introduction to each chapter that relates some of the more personal aspects of the research and the bulk of each chapter will be a more technical scientific report on our investigations. Each chapter will deal with one of the components of the project - survey, testing and excavations. We excavated eight sites from the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic that are discussed in this volume. The concluding chapter summarizes our research in the area and proffers opinions on a variety of archaeological subjects, with visits to climate change, seasonality and sedentism, hunter-gatherer complexity, aDNA, inequality and the origins and spread of agriculture.
Papers examining the anthropology and archaeology of early cultures in Scandinavia, the North Pacific and Bering Sea, and the northwest Atlantic,with comparative studies of various aspects.
Comprehensive and concise, this account details the agrarian history of Sweden - as it is defined by its present national borders - from the Neolithic times to present day. Key historical concepts and events are discussed, including the introduction of planned agriculture alongside the domestication of animals; the feudal relationships and interactions between men and women, various age groups, and different social classes during the Middle Ages; the changes brought about by industrialism and the development of political democracy; the effects of World Wars I and II; and Sweden's inclusion in the European Union in 1995. This study also examines the interdependence between agriculture and other industries as well as the relationship between agriculture and politics on a local, regional, national, and international level.
Covering the approximately 6,500 years from the beginning of the Late Mesolithic to the transition to the Bronze Age, Mats Larsson takes the reader on a journey through the development of Swedish prehistoric society and culture set against the backdrop of climatic and landscape change. Using examples selected from a wealth of archaeological sites, artefacts and palaeo-environmental studies he explores a series of chronological themes: such as how the relationship between land and water influenced peoples lives in many ways and the development of often long-distance cultural and exchange networks, as reflected in the occurrence of foreign stone axes, flint, copper and pottery. He descri...