Archaeology and Osteology

Cosmology and cremation graves. Animal sacrifice in late Viking age graves in Gamla Uppsala.
The aim of this thesis is to present a version of the cosmological meanings/motives behind the cremation
ritual and animal sacrifice during the Viking age.
The physical analysis of late Viking age cremation burials from Gamla Uppsala may yield additional
knowledge about the burial custom of that area. Five cremation graves from Gamla Uppsala have been
analyzed and interpreted. At least two of the graves have been dated to the late Viking age, maybe even early
medieval times (ca 1100 AD). This puts the burials in an interesting perspective since they then
chronologically belong to the last generations of pre-Christian cremation burials in Scandinavia.
During the analysis of the cremated graves identified species were human, dog, cat, hen and a tooth from
cattle. All typical species in a late Viking age burial. The central question posed in this thesis is why were
dogs, cats, hens and teeth of cattle deposited in the cremation graves? The answer given in this thesis is that
the ancient pre-Christian Scandinavian religion was a ‘nature religion’ and animals were considered as
spiritual beings in aid to humans with their own symbolisms and meanings.
The other questions in this thesis relates to the cosmology of this Viking age ‘nature religion’. What did
cremation burials mean cosmologically, and what Christian influences were there? The answers given are
that the pre-Christian religion regarded the entire act of cremation as a holy religious ceremony the whole
family attended. The body of the diseased was to be returned to the four elements. The smoke created by the
cremation pyres was viewed to set the soul free of the body. Some remains were possibly used as
components for magical purpose which explains the lack of remains in many cremation burials. The
Christian influence was likely mainly that of abandoning the ritual of cremation as Scandinavia turned to the
new faith.

Vad för sjukdom drabbade vikingen Egil Skallagrimsson? Två forskare (dock ej arkeologer) ställs mot varann i denna text (hemtenta). Paget's Disease ställs mot van Buchhem Disease och diskuteras vilket som kan vara mest troligast att ha drabbat Egil.

A site catchment analysis is a methodology that relates an archaeological site to the surrounding physiography and simultaneously defines the ‘limits of influence’ of an archaeological site. Specifically, these site catchment analyses are described as studies in technology and economic range of individual sites. Staple foods of the sub-Neolithic Pitted Ware culture (PWC) were fish and seal, they did not produce cereal, but did hunt wild boar. Hunting wild boar is suggested to having been very important to the PWC due to the animal being highly represented in PWC burials and cultural layers.
One conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis may be that the hunting grounds were most or all around the site of Ajvide.  To discover the actual field camps, potential station and cache areas requires more excavation efforts. Theoretically, minor charcoals, brittle fire stones, a specialised variety of lithic tools and less valued parts of animals should be expected to be the remains on these sandy moraine and indicate ancient field camps. These prehistoric field camp whereabouts could be predicted via site catchment analysis. With attempts at recreating the Neolithic landscape in maps based on ancient shorelines, lakes and present-day bottom sediments a picture may emerge on potential wild boar hunting grounds. Theoretically a number of these sites nearby on the sandy moraine, at least within or perhaps even outside a short distance of the 10km line around Ajvide. However, since Gotland is relatively small, hunters would presumably not venture much further for risk of entering territories belonging to other tribes.

As diet is widely recognised as a very important parameter underlying behavioral and ecological differences among living animals, reconstruction of past diets may help us understand the health and status of prehistoric animals. Studies on the dental microwear analysis (DMA) on pigs have the potential of revealing diet during the last days of the pigs’ lives, although perhaps mainly as a supplemental method. This is because dental microwear, as understood as pits and striations, are caused when hard abrasive particles are compressed and dragged into and between the enamel surfaces. These patterns change rapidly in a few days and vary in density pattern from rooting to stall-fed pigs. Broadly, rooting pigs often exhibit fewer pits and more striations whereas the opposite is generally true for stall-fed pigs. Evaluating hard diets apart from soft via low-magnification methods has the potential of hinting at the status and economical value of pigs studied in an archaeological context. Documenting these dental microwear feature patterns with a fast and easy method of recording may yield a large comparative base in which to intercompare (broadly) various sample groups for health and economic status of said samples.
When normally casts and moulds need to be taken of teeth samples before analysis, this paper argues low magnification studies requires only a computer with image editing softwares and a digital microscope to get the same results.
During their last days alive, the pigs at Ajvide seem to have been rooting and subject to a hard diet. This is since the Ajvide pigs dental microwear density has more striations than the known domestic pigs, who were likely fed a soft diet. A comparison between the test groups using the Student’s T test, confirms that the statistics are comparable. Although only a small sample size was used, it may be indicating that the method is applicable to determine at least the last few days of pigs’ diet analysed.
It may also be argued that this simplified DMA method and produced results mainly apply to clear distinctions between pigs being fed and/or having access without human aid to hard vs soft diets. Such problems could be better discernable when there are two or more distinct populations of pigs at any site.

Studies in zoo-archaeological Neolithic contexts is the study of early animal domestication in relation to humans transitioning into a more sedentary species. Research and documentation are vital for reconstructing the mechanisms behind the threshold event. In this thesis, teeth of Suidae have been documented, analysed and compared osteologically and interpreted cross-culturally. In addition, aDNA, isotope, coat colour and physical mammal size affecting factor studies are presented to contextualise this thesis. Primary osteological methods are Mandibular Wear Stage (MWS), Linear Enamel Hypoplasia (LEH) recordings and lower jaw third molar (M3) length measurement. These methods can detect biometric domestication markers. The analysed Suidae teeth are from the Middle Neolithic site of Ajvide, Gotland, Sweden. A collection of modern wild boar act as Control sample. These teeth are compared primarily with known domestic pig teeth sample statistics from the British Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls, Wiltshire, United Kingdom. Results indicate that the Middle Neolithic Pitted Ware culture (PWC) on Gotland hunted during winter and kept limited numbers of captive wild boars as totemic animals (pets) possibly bound to land and ancestry. However, an exact reconstruction of the PWC pig pet keeping practices are uncertain due to human-pig relationships being highly dynamic. Intensified pig hunting, not pet keeping should be considered early domestication. Domestication carries with it detectable biometric markers, which seem to be rare in the Neolithic. The cross-cultural comparisons on traditional pig ‘low-intensity husbandry’ can attest to a human-pig relationship of hunter-gatherers keeping captive wild animals. The pig was not a staple food for the PWC and thus not intensively hunted, rather pigs were rare ritualistic commodities and likely highly praised. Perpetuating this human-pig relationship could have been maintained by PWC ‘big men’ that engaged in socio-political lavish giveaways at festivities and funerals, thus ‘hogging wealth’, but never domesticated the pig.