Digital publication offers new insights into the heath’s thousand-year history
The digital publication A Place for the Heathlands? explores the evolving relationships between humans and heathlands across epochs, from the Holocene to the Anthropocene.
More than five thousand years ago, the Neolithic communities of Northern Europe began to expand the open heather-based ecosystem that we know as heathlands. Through a combination of fire and grazing their livestock, humans cleared the post-glacial forests and expanded the niche for Calluna vulgaris (heather) and other heathland plants. Heather, an evergreen shrub, served as a vital resource – for winter grazing, for fuel, for tools, for thatch, for byre-bedding, and as fertiliser. The multiple affordances of heather meant that the Calluna heathlands, over time, became deeply embedded in the evolving domestic and funerary architecture. In these heathland landscapes, wide networks of mobility, transhumance and exchange developed.
The publication is published in collaboration with the Jutland Archaeological Society and is freely available in open acces at www.heathland.place
Unique study of the Neolithic societies in Southern Scandinavia
Based on the extensive collection and systematic analysis of data from a limited area in the eastern part of the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, this book focuses on revealing the cultural development during the Neolithic period (3900-1700 BC) within this area.
Settlement-archaeological studies such as this are not common, and make a rare and ground-breaking contribution to the understanding of a subject that is
enthusiastically discussed in archaeological research in both Denmark and the rest of Northern Europe.
Major publication sheds new light on Scandinavia’s earliest kingdoms
The royal sites of Lejre and Gamla Uppsala loom large in Nordic history and folklore, as aristocratic power centres founded by descendants of the gods.
This book, and the six-year project of which it is the result, presents a unique Danish-Swedish interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, saga scholars, and archaeologists to explore these iconic sites and the roots of Scandinavia’s earliest kingdoms.
Long-awaited publication on the Tustrup complex
The complex of megaliths near Tustrup is a prime example of the megalithic sites used by early farming communities in Stone Age Europe. Excavated in the 1950s by Moesgaard Museum, the site continues to hold great contemporary and scientific value. Its significance relates primarily to the unusual find of a ritual complex connected to two dolmens and passage grave.
Experts have researched the finds and meticulously analysed the site and its artefacts. These detailed studies have led to surprising and well-documented interpretations of the megalithic tombs, the construction history of the ritual site and their function, along with the inter-relationship between the monuments.
The second volume completes groundbreaking work on Viking Age Ribe
This is the second and final volume presenting the results of the Northern Emporium research project and the high-definition excavations carried out within this programme in 2017-18 in Ribe.
The 22 chapters survey the remarkable range of finds retrieved from this hub of the North Sea world in the eighth and ninth centuries AD: artefacts made from pottery, stone, shell, glass, metals, amber, leather, wood, textile, bone and antler. They offer detailed insights that highlight discoveries such as the assemblages from glass bead or comb-making workshops, and rare finds such as wooden furnishings and musical instruments.
Major publication rewrites the history of Viking Age Ribe
In the early Middle Ages, a network of maritime trading towns – emporia – emerged along the northern coasts of Europe. These early urban sites are among archaeology’s most notable contributions to our knowledge of the period between the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire and the growth of a maritime-oriented world in the Viking Age. Ribe, on the western coast of Denmark, is one of these sites.
In 2017-18 the Northern Emporium research project conducted seminal research excavations, which provided new foundations for the study of this nodal point between Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the world beyond.
About the Society
Jutland Archaeological Society was founded in 1951. Its aim is to promote archaeological research and to make archaeology accessible to anyone interested. For example, by publishing the annual journal ‘Kuml’ and a range of other academic books, and by arranging lectures, tours and excursions.
Ribe 700-1050
From Emporium to Civitas in Southern Scandinavia
By Morten Søvsø
This book provides a comprehensive presentation and analysis of the archaeology of Ribe through to the end af the Viking Period. Alongside that, the book has a major topographical section which discusses West Jutland in this period and the connexions between Ribe and the hinterland of the town. In addition, a concluding chapter discusses the origin og towns in Southern Scandinavia.