Fornvännen's Summer Issue On-Line

Fornvännen 2013:2, last summer's issue, is now on-line in its entirety on Open Access.

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Whenever you put an edition of Fornvännen online I'm surprised that most of the articles are in Swedish. Is Nordic archeology so country specific that no one outside Sweden could be remotely interested in the topics? Or does Swedish server as lingua franca for the area?

Swedish, Danish and Norwegian don't really deserve to be called separate languages. Particularly in writing, they are mutually easily understood. And in Finland, most people know at least some Swedish and many are fluent in the language.

The reason that we don't generally publish in English is that archaeology is not a global discipline. It's a bunch of regional and chronological sub-disciplines that pretty much ignore each other.

"The coffin is made of pewter and fire-gilt bronze and brass"
Cue inevitable plug for Glen Cook's mildly spoofy fantasy novel "Petty Pewter Gods" (all the novels about Garret, P.I. have a metal in the title).

And like herpes, the Swedish legal framework for metal detecting will just not go away. I have noticed that once a policy is established in Sweden, it will take half a century of complaints before it is changed. (No, I will not give examples, I would go on writing all evening)

By Birger Johansson (not verified) on 13 Feb 2014 #permalink

This is a great comment and I as an amateur have the same view on Nordic Archeology:

"The reason that we don’t generally publish in English is that archaeology is not a global discipline. It’s a bunch of regional and chronological sub-disciplines that pretty much ignore each other."

I would add that Archeolgy in each Nordic country is not that interested in what happens in neighbour countries. Also, is the department in Lund interested in what happens in the departrment in Uppsala and the reverse? Perhaps that is too drastic?

By Thomas Ivarsson (not verified) on 13 Feb 2014 #permalink

The Degerberga, in Scania, linear monument looks very mucjh like the sensational and totally unique find of the same kind of monument in Uppsala:-)

By Thomas Ivarsson (not verified) on 13 Feb 2014 #permalink

"And like herpes, the Swedish legal framework for metal detecting will just not go away. " Very well said:-)