Nine Years Of Blogging

I’ve been blogging for a bit more than nine years now, and today Aard turns eight! Traffic for Oct, Nov, Dec has been ~450 daily readers. Dear Reader, is there anything you'd like me to write about?

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It may be a minority interest, but would be interested in a discussion of Scandinavian prehistoric pottery, perhaps origins or a particular period.

By Charles P Redwine (not verified) on 29 Dec 2014 #permalink

A funny thing about Scandinavia is that since agriculture reaches us so late (3950 cal BP), we have no pre-pottery Neolithic. Instead we have at least 1500 years of pre-Neolithic decorated pottery, during the Late Mesolithic!

Congratulations, Martin, yours is the only blog I check daily. I've been curious about what migration-period archaeology is like in northern Sweden. Were there any recognizable cultural differences as you went northward? My dad's family is from Jämtland (Bispgården in Ragunda, specifically, so maybe they were peasants working for the bishop), and as best as I can tell they identified themselves as Jamtish (as distinct from Swedish) as far back as the late 18th century. Granted that doesn't mean they were living there a thousand years previously, but I'm still curious . Did you do any poking around when you were in Umeå? Your thoughts, and anything I can read on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you Kevin!

In the Migration Period there's a really strong, probably Germanic-speaking agricultural and iron-making settlement along Sweden's East Coast and in Jämtland in the inland. It seems to be part of a Norwegian settlement wave that isn't aware of the future border between Norway and Sweden. Their material culture is strongly inspired from southern Scandinavia. Otherwise northern Sweden is entirely occupied by hunter-gatherers who probably speak Saami.

Jämtland province has historically been part of Norway or Sweden at various times and its inhabitants tend to have a strong local identity, as you say.

I think that you are doing a great job with your blog. When do we have permanent villages in Scandinavia? It is often said that villages was not permanent, 2-3 centuriies or more, until the end of the iron age. But what about Apalle and Uppåkra?

By Thomas Ivarsson (not verified) on 30 Dec 2014 #permalink

Thank you Thomas! If by "permanent village" you mean a settlement of more than one inhabited house plus outbuildings, then they go back at least to the Late Neolithic in Denmark and Scania. See Magnus Artursson's 2009 book Bebyggelse och samhällsstruktur.

Thank you. I will try to find that book. Your answer makes sense.

What happened then during the end of the viking age or early middle ages was that new villages was established? Did that had anything to do with reorganization of agriculture?

By Thomas Ivarsson (not verified) on 30 Dec 2014 #permalink

I haven't dealt with issues of settlement structure in my work, but as I understand it the main reorganisation over most of southern Sweden happens in the 13th century with the establishment of rectangular hamlet plots, shared strip-divided infields and laga läge / solskifte.

Congratulations on nine years of blogging, Martin. I like pretty much everything you post, so just keep up the good work! :)

I am craving Norse mythology.

By Max Milhayser (not verified) on 01 Jan 2015 #permalink

What do skeptics make of love?

We think it's all down to neurochemistry. But we enjoy it a lot.