Historical Archaeology

This paper examines alternatives to top-down approaches to heritage management and development. One of the key issues facing communities around the globe today is the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD)--the determination of heritage values by “experts” and government officials on behalf of the people. It is all too common to find local people alienated by such practices and searching for ways in which they can take ownership of their own heritage. Community-based research that shares power and is participatory is one avenue that is quickly developing in many regions around the globe. In Africa, a number of villages and other small communities have taken the initiative to preserve and develop their heritage, free of outside control. Important lessons may be drawn from these experiences, particularly the use of discourse-based research that captures how the people define and live out their heritages through everyday practice.

In the fall of 2009, the authors conducted a limited
ground-penetrating radar survey in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
on the remains of the First Fort Crawford (47CR249). First Fort Crawford was built in 1816 and abandoned in 1832. In the 1930s, the fort was accidentally rediscovered. At that time, Leland R. Cooper of Hamline University excavated a majority of the fort’s rooms as a Works Progress Administration project. Largely undocumented, these excavations have left us without an accurate idea of the extent of the excavations and, more to the point, what was not excavated. Sketchy surviving records suggest that the powder magazine and latrines were either not located or not excavated at the time. Comparing forts with similar architecture offered clues as to where to look for those features. Cooper’s accession books and photographs allowed us to reconstruct much of the excavation and its features. Geophysical Survey Systems SIR-3000 ground-penetrating radar was used in an attempt to relocate these features for future excavation and to determine the extent of previous excavations. The results of these investigations indicate that there are intact rooms and features that were not previously excavated.

An archaeologically grounded history of six legendary places in Detroit.

The city of Detroit has endured periods of unprecedented industrial growth,
decline, and revitalization between the late nineteenth century and the present.

In Detroit Remains: Archaeology and Community Histories of Six Legendary
Places, Krysta Ryzewski presents six archaeological case studies of
legendary Detroit institutions—Little Harry speakeasy, the Ransom Gillis
house, the Blue Bird Inn, Gordon Park, the Grande Ballroom, and the Halleck
Street log cabin—that trace the contours of the city’s underrepresented
communities and their relationship to local currents of capitalism and
social justice. Through a combination of rigorous historical archaeological
research and narrative storytelling, Ryzewski deftly contextualizes the cases within the city’s current struggles, including recovery from bankruptcy, and future-oriented recovery efforts.

Detroit Remains is is the first historical archaeology book focused on Detroit and one of the few to foreground the archaeology of the Great Migration era (ca. 1915–1970). The archaeological scholarship is rooted in collaborative, community-involved, and public-facing initiatives. The case studies examine how power is and has been exercised in Detroit’s communities over the past century: how it was stripped from the city’s twentieth- and twenty-first-century residents, but also how they acquired alternative sources of agency by establishing creative and illicit economies, most of which still operated within the city’s capitalist framework.

Throughout this book, connections run deep between archaeology, heritage, politics, historic preservation, and storytelling. Detroit Remains
demonstrates how the city’s past, present, and future lie not in ruins but
in the tangible archaeological traces of the everyday lives of Detroiters and
their legacies.

Published by University of Alabama Press

Im Jahr 2010 fand im Zuge der Neuerrichtung des Wiener Hauptbahnhofes in der Landgutgasse im 10. Wiener Gemeindebezirk eine Ausgrabung auf dem Gelände des ehemaligen Matzleinsdorfer Friedhofs statt. Dieser Friedhof war einer der fünf ehemaligen kommunalen Friedhöfe, die im Zuge der Friedhofs- und Begräbnisreformen Kaiser Josephs II. im Jahr 1784 vor den Toren der Stadt Wien entstanden. Der Band präsentiert die Ergebnisse der archäologischen Ausgrabung. Die aufgefundenen verstorbenen Individuen konnten mit Hilfe von Schriftquellen namentlich identifiziert werden.

In 2013, the Missouri Department of Transportation began conducting archaeological investigations prior to proposed reconstruction of the I-64/I-55 interchange at the end of the Poplar Street Bridge in downtown St. Louis. The project, located immediately south of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and the Gateway Arch, is situated within the confines of what was historically the old French village of St. Louis. Excavation not only identified features associated with the mid-nineteenth century occupation of the area, but also remnants of at least two of the original French homes built during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Results of the 2013 and 2014 field seasons produced somewhat surprising results, suggesting that more of the original occupation of the area has survived than previously thought possible. Although impacted by 250 years of urbanization and development, artifacts and features relating to the earliest European settlers have been identified in every location investigated. The discovery of these features provides hope that more evidence of the old French village remains to be found and preserved.

The town of Augusta, 300km south of Perth in Western Australia, was settled in May 1830 and represents the first regional settlement of the British Swan River Colony outside of the Swan River area that was settled in 1829. One of many New World settlements established in Australia – and the rest of the New World – during the latter stage of the Industrial Revolution (c.1760-1840), it has not been studied despite its archaeological potential and significance. Augusta’s physical environment, isolation and milder climate comparative to the main settlements established at the Swan River makes it an excellent case study to observe adaptation in frontier environments during this period in Australian and the broader New World context.

The formation of the Swan River Colony resulted in the first ‘free’ – not associated with penal systems of emigration – British settlement in Australia and the archaeology of these initial towns is useful for studying behaviour in frontier environments. Despite Australia’s importance to the archaeological study of free settlement during this period, the comparative emphasis on penal history has created a bias – and general public perception – that Australia’s history is synonymous with a penal colony. While penal systems undoubtedly contributed to rapid development by a good supply of labour and resources, the bias is at the detriment of studying human behaviour in frontier environments. Western Australia was formally a penal colony from 1849 but despite two decades of free settlement the current archaeological literature about its past is tethered to the period post-1849.

The study of adaptation has been a focus of archaeology for many decades that has included how humans learn in frontier environments. A more recent emphasis has been placed on attempting to understand the specific cognitive and environmental variables involved in learning in a foreign environment. Rockman’s (2003) Landscape Learning Model provides a framework to understand how humans learn in a foreign environment using the variables of locational knowledge that involve locating resources; limitational knowledge linked to the limits of the environment and its resources; and social knowledge that is about how existing culture translates into the new environment. The Landscape Learning Model provides a framework that aims to understand the process and archaeological patterns of learning in a foreign environment.

This project asks the questions ‘what knowledge did British settlers bring and how effective was it at Augusta?’ and, ‘what is the archaeological evidence of learning at Augusta’. The questions were addressed using the results of a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) desktop study, two excavations in the main town site – those relating to the Turner and Molloy families– and four pedestrian surveys outside the main town site. The data from these surveys was subjected to functional analysis and used Rockman’s (2003) Landscape Learning Model as a framework to draw out inferences aiming to address learning at Augusta between 1830 and 1849 when most of the 1830 settlers left the area.

The results of this study present a slightly different narrative to that presented in the secondary histories written since the 1950s. The comparative emphasis in these histories on the later Vasse and Busselton settlements provides a basis for inferring that the function of Augusta was as a steppingstone following its abandonment by most of the initial British settlers. Additionally, interpretation to-date using only surviving primary historical documents and the human tendency to explain abandonment using failure – a ‘disaster mindset’ (C. Cameron & Tomka, 1993) - has resulted in the reasons surrounding British settlers departing Augusta being limited to that settlers were unable to overcome the blight of isolation and the physical environment. This is not the case. The British were highly resilient and the archaeology of this project demonstrates that this resilience enabled settlers to effectively learn about the new – foreign – environment. Furthermore, this research suggests that it is not useful to consider Augusta as ‘abandoned’ in 1849 given that continuous settlement occurred post-1849 and the exodus of British settlers can be attributed to social knowledge. The results of the study also highlight the archaeological potential and significance of Augusta and need for future study.

Whoredom in the Wild West has created a plethora of pseudo-historical “memorabilia”, artifacts that have become part of popular culture. Brothel tokens are part and parcel of the “Wild West” image portrayed by the media and western novels. Strong sexual economies were prevalent in most western towns due to their unusually high male population ratios and are always present in mediums that portray western American life including reenacted historical western American towns such as Tombstone, Arizona.

Historical Archaeology in Central Europe contains 25 articles that present archaeological analyses and interpretations on a variety of subjects from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, addressing the topics of Religion, Conflict, and Death; Technology, Industry, and Modernization; and Landscapes and Cities in Change. The articles collected for the purpose of this book offer a broad variety of topics and provide examples from urban archaeology, landscape archaeology, underwater archaeology, industrial archaeology, battlefield archaeology, aviation archaeology, Ottoman archaeology, and material culture studies. Sites and case studies presented range chronologically from the 15th to the 20th century. Furthermore, the volume presents summaries of the status and theoretical foundations of a historical archaeology in the various central European countries and offers the perspectives from each. The result is a volume that summarizes the state of historical archaeology in the region and lays a foundation for current and future generations of Central European archaeologists to build upon.

Historical Archaeology in Central Europe contains 25 articles that present archaeological analyses and interpretations on a variety of subjects from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, addressing the topics of Religion, Conflict, and Death; Technology, Industry, and Modernization; and Landscapes and Cities in Change. The articles collected for the purpose of this book offer a broad variety of topics and provide examples from urban archaeology, landscape archaeology, underwater archaeology, industrial archaeology, battlefield archaeology, aviation archaeology, Ottoman archaeology, and material culture studies. Sites and case studies presented range chronologically from the 15th to the 20th century. Furthermore, the volume presents summaries of the status and theoretical foundations of a historical archaeology in the various central European countries and offers the perspectives from each. The result is a volume that summarizes the state of historical archaeology in the region and lays a foundation for current and future generations of Central European archaeologists to build upon.

The mid-first millennium CE represents a crucial period in the emergence of early polities in Southeast Asia. However, disagreement remains between archaeologists and art historians as to the precise dating of this shift from prehistory to history. This article focuses on the Dvaravati period and re-evaluates evidence in Thai and Western language publications. A growing number of sites excavated over the past two decades in particular show occupation from c. the fourth to fifth century onwards while others provide a continual sequence stretching back well into the Iron Age. I argue that evidence from these sites makes a strong case for postulating a proto-Dvaravati period spanning c. the fourth to fifth centuries. In doing so this article proposes this period as the timeframe within which the nascent traits and characteristics of what becomes Dvaravati in the seventh to ninth centuries are present and gradually developing.

Finds from the arable fields in Brabant (NL) are usually regarded as waste that was mixed in with the manure, or as objects that were lost during the work on the land. As such they are thought to be of little archaeological relevance. Occasionally, however, metal detector hobbyists retrieve artefacts from these fields for which such explanation seems unlikely. These include a.o. papal seals, and the seal matrix of a distant priory. Questions on the nature of these artefacts were the starting point of a metal detector survey on a open field complex in Veldhoven. A pilot project (Verspay 2012) produced interesting results, suggesting that a part of these finds could be linked to religious practice aimed at the protection of the crops, securing a good harvest.

In order to test this hypothesis a subsequent survey was conducted on the neighbouring field complex De Looker. This time covering an entire historical block....

This report covers the results of this systematic study as well as an illustrated catalogue of our findings.

This paper explores the role of public architecture in anchoring Cherokee communities to particular points within the southern Appalachian landscape in the wake of European contact in North America. Documentary evidence about Cherokee public structures known as townhouses demonstrates that they were settings for a variety of events related to public life in Cherokee towns, and that there were a variety of symbolic meanings associated with them. Archaeological evidence of Cherokee townhouses—especially the sequence of six townhouses at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina—demonstrates an emphasis on continuity in the placement and alignment of public architecture through time. Building and rebuilding these public structures in place, and the placement of burials within these architectural spaces, created enduring attachments between Cherokee towns and the places in which they lived, in the midst of the geopolitical instability created by European contact in eastern North America.

Este libro describe el trabajo realizado en el sitio arqueológico que se ubica detrás de la Casa de Gobierno, en donde funcionó entre los años 1857 y 1894 la Aduana Nueva, más conocida como Aduana Taylor, la cual constituyó el primer edificio público de gran envergadura y de características monumentales que tuvo la ciudad de Buenos Aires.
Una investigación histórica y documental exhaustiva al inicio del texto permite conocer que sucedió en el lugar donde primeramente funcionó el Fuerte de Buenos Aires y parte del cual fue reutilizado en la construcción de esta Aduana del siglo XIX, cuya estructura aún puede observarse hoy día.
Toda  su construcción, funcionamiento y demolición llegando hasta el momento actual en el que se erige allí el Museo de Casa Rosada, está narrado con la finalidad de contextualizar y poder comprender el trabajo arqueológico efectuado en el lugar entre los años 2009 y 2011, así como los hallazgos arqueológicos descubiertos. El piso original que tenía el patio de maniobras, los restos de un sistema de movilidad de mercaderías - desconocido por las fuentes históricas de la época y posteriores - junto con fragmentos y objetos de diferentes materiales, que son descriptos y analizados particularmente (lozas, gres, vidrio, metal, piedras para chispas, restos óseos, entre otros) constituyen solo algunos de los restos arqueológicos recuperados.
Estas páginas muestran asimismo como profesionales de la arqueología trabajan dentro de una obra de construcción moderna, de forma multidisciplinaria, teniendo un carácter de rescate pero con un fuerte componente de investigación. Dentro de la Arqueología Urbana Argentina se espera constituya un trabajo de referencia para todos aquellos que se abocan a esta especialidad, así como también para el público en general interesado en este tipo de información y relato.

The 18th century water-powered ironworks at Agoreggi, in the Basque country, was reconstructed based on contemporary historical records and archaeological investigations. In 1994-1999 three campaigns of experiments were carried out with the aim of reproducing the scale and technology of the iron production. This paper is a fully illustrated description of the experiments and, in particular, of the practical problems of the air delivery system and the use of the copper tobera (tuyere). In 1999 six agoas (blooms) were made of varying quality and size, the largest being a 30kg ferritic agoa smelted from 140kg of ore, but this is only about half the scale of the 18th century production.
It subsequently transpired that the mouth of the tobera used for the experiments should have been 170% larger, thus allowing more air to be blown into the furnace, and the making of agoas closer to the 18th century size. See Crew 2013, 'Twenty five years of bloomery experiments...', pages [46-48], for an overview of the experiments and a brief discussion of the tobera problem.

This thesis focuses on the archaeological study of the Slave Cemetery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Here, methodological and theoretical principles are utilized to study the area that many enslaved workers call their final resting place. Through the use of this space, it is hypothesized that Mount Vernon’s enslaved community practiced distinct traditions, instilling in that spot a sense of place, and reinforcing their individual and communal human identities. This thesis will also investigate the cemetery within its broader regional and cultural contexts, to attain a better understanding of the death rituals and culturally resistant activates that slaves at Mount Vernon used in their day-to-day battle against the system that held them in bondage.

In preparation for the marking of the centenary of the First World War, Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) wished to characterise the ‘quantity and quality’ of the built heritage in Scotland that related to the prosecution of the war, and to enhance the record of that heritage in RCAHMS's Canmore database. The project definition required an estimate of the proportion of heritage  assets already designated, and an assessment of the quality of already-designated sites, and of their representativeness.

The project report lists the places and buildings that were identified, noting where appropriate the existing Canmore record number and whether the ‘asset’ was designated, or worthy of further investigation or review. Introductory text is also provided for all categories and sub-categories.

The project updated or created over 830 records in Canmore, representing over 600 sites, buildings and places, and introduced a greater degree of consistency in how they were described. In addition an outline list of Auxiliary Hospitals and civil hospitals that accommodated military patients was created. This total of over 800 ‘assets’ was considerably in excess of the 300–400 originally expected by the project sponsors.

This study examines bead assemblages from Basque sites north of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and from Native burials south of the Gulf in French Acadia, with a view to determining which varieties may be
ascribed to these two cultural groups. It also examines sixteenth-century Saint Lawrence Valley bead assemblages in order to discover which types are found here, and to compare them with Basque,Acadian, and Great Lakes assemblages in order to learn whether European materials followed the valley in the sixteenth century.The explicit aims of this paper are 1) to extend and refine the sixteenth-century bead typology around the Gulf and in the Saint Lawrence lowlands, 2) to understand the respective roles of the Basques and the French in trade with Natives, and 3) to draw conclusions regarding possible trade routes to the lower Great Lakes during this period.

The foundation dates of three castles in Maelienydd, traditionally built by the Mortimers.  However the contemporary evidence suggests that Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (d.1240) was far more likely the builder of Cefnllys and Knucklas castles.
The evidence for the foundation of Timboeth by Roger Mortimer in late 1267 and Dolforwyn by Dafydd ap Llywelyn (d.1246) is also put forward.

This is the updated version of 'Heritage Games' following lots of comments.  It is group of activities that can be used in heritage practice to explore what matters and why, and to whom, and to use that understanding to manage or conserve heritage, indecisions-making and in working with different communities.  There is also a section on values in leading heritage organisations.  As you can see from the first page, I am still playing with the title!

Photographs and documentary accounts relating to Geronimo’s 1886 attempted surrender at the Cañon de los Embudos site are used to explore the archaeological nature of structure or hut imprints. These primary written and visual sources provide a basis for understanding the extremely unobtrusive nature of these shelter remains. Archaeological footprints from this site today reveal that house construction patterns are consistent with mobile groups in general when under circumstances similar to those at the surrender site.

Epic accounts of polar explorations have dominated the narratives of Antarctica’s past and contributed to a prevailing image of distant wilderness untouched by humans. Archaeological studies have been undertaken from different theoretical and practical perspectives that have helped to either question or reinforce the dominant narratives of Antarctic history. Archaeology began in the late 1970s, focusing on conserving the huts left behind by the expeditions of the Heroic Era of Antarctic Exploration. Since the 1980s archaeological research in the South Shetland Islands region has been focused on diverse topics, including sealing/whaling expeditions. This study presents a historical overview of archaeological work in Antarctica through a chronological approach that describes previous research conducted at the sites of polar expeditions. It also discusses how archaeological practices have contributed to the complex heritage-making process in Antarctica.

Archaeological research focused on nineteenth-century sealers-whalers occupation in the South Shetland Islands has been developed for the last three decades, and the conservation and management of archaeological sites has become a matter of concern for the scientific teams involved. To date more than 30 of these sites have been found and marked along the coasts of the Islands. Some of these have been excavated and studied in more detail providing information about not only sealer’s everyday experiences in land but also the relationship of sealing and whaling to global capitalism expansion. 
Sealing activities were present in the South Shetland Islands since their discovery during the entire nineteenth century. They contributed to the incorporation of uncharted Antarctic places, and the experiences of the groups of sealers left on shore for their duties were the first of their kind in Antarctica. The significance of those expeditions has low visibility in Antarctic Narratives. The nineteenth century material remains of these sealers represent a unique source of evidence for the study of the early stage of human exploration and occupation of Antarctica. Site conservation has not yet been undertaken in the context of the Antarctic Treaty System.
One of the main goals of this paper is to show the analytical power that material culture studies have for understanding the sealers presence in the history of Antarctica. This paper poses the general question: What has the study of material things meant to our knowledge about the historical sealing industry in Antarctica? As a starting point, sealers presence in Antarctica is understood in the particular historical context of the expansion of the modern capitalist world. The sealers presence in the islands represents the process of exploration and of incorporation of an unknown and remote place. From this perspective, I am interested in learning about the particularities of this process by posing specific questions that help characterize the strategies used by sealers in the South Shetland Islands during the nineteenth century.
This paper presents a summary and meta-analysis of data produced during three decades of archaeological research on the topic, addressing specific questions regarding the decisions involved in the use of space, the selection of economic activities developed, the organization of the activities ashore, and possible temporal changes in these choices. More specifically, this paper examines whether the sealer strategies were expansive or focalized in terms of use of space, opportunistic or specialized in terms of resources exploited, flexible or rigid in terms of organization, and to what degree they changed along time during the nineteenth century. Data to answer these questions was gathered through a deep review of all the information about sealers sites in the South Shetland Islands published so far, including publications from our own team as well as other groups.

Faced by a field of pack ice and 97 icebergs, on January 30, 1774, Commander James Cook in His Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Resolution, at 71°100 South and 106°540 West and some 150 km from the continent, had not seen Antarctica, but he had come as close to it as he thought anyone could. Cook felt that his ambition had led him “… not only farther than any other man had been before, but as far as I think it possible for man to go …” (Beaglehole, 1955-74: Vol. 2, 30 Jan 1774). The great seaman was wrong in the last assertion, but he had pushed the envelope of a centuries-old conception of the frigid south mightily (Fig. 1).

African and African American communities have faced pressures of
marginalization and racism in the South Carolina Lowcountry since their arrival with Europeans in the seventeenth century. These pressures have been felt physically, socially, economically, politically, and even academically, through misrepresentations in historical portrayals. The field of historic archaeology is uniquely situated with access to informative sources from both the past and the present, and as such exhibits great potential in taking strides to replace the limiting presentation of a static and homogeneous single African American culture with views that instead emphasize a focus on unique
cultures and identities. This thesis attempts to contribute to conversations on the archaeology of identity by investigating the site of an African American family’s occupation in coastal South Carolina. In looking to the material evidence of occupation at the Ferguson Road Tract uncovered through archaeological endeavors, historical
documentary records spanning the time of local occupation, and oral accounts of
descendants and current occupants of the property, this thesis will demonstrate the
potential for interpreting the interactions of place and the identity of its occupants within
the local social environment in the form of a multidisciplinary framework for researching
African American archaeological sites in the South Carolina coastal region that may be
used as a template for future African American Lowcountry sites.

This dissertation examines the formation of commodity landscapes that manifested between 1870 and 1930 at the Mann-Simons site, a collection of commercial and domestic spaces in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, owned and operated by the same African American family from the mid-nineteenth century to 1970.  Primary data comes from archaeological excavations at the site.  Through a lens of commodities production and consumption during the period when our current culture of consumption developed, I tell three stories of the family and property using a variety of theoretical tools, including ideas of discourse materialized, hybridity, object mediation, and thick description.  By considering, in turn, the same set of archaeologically-recovered objects from three distinct vantage points – consumption, production, and heritage – the Mann-Simons site illuminates how commodity landscapes shaped, and were shaped by, discourses at myriad scales and how these landscapes mediated practice and knowledges.  The first story is one of production, and tells a story of the social lives of things understood independently of the practices of the family.  I demonstrate how discourses of health and sanitation link objects as diverse as linoleum and brightly-colored walls; how home electrification influenced the materials of which buttons were made; and how the application of the predictive commodity flow model is useful for understanding market access and alternative market interactions.  The second story, one of consumption, is a story of object biographies.  I demonstrate that through an understanding of object mediation and ideas of technology, the Mann-Simons family at the turn of the twentieth century was using the emerging world of commodities to tie themselves into a desired future trajectory, one that would become mainstream by the 1930s: commodities as the path to modernity.  The final story is one of heritage.  I suggest that museums are social-material hybrids that mediate visitors' conceptions of authenticity, knowledge, and history.  At the Mann-Simons site, this hybridity shaped the meaning and significance of this site-turned-house museum over the past forty-years.  I further examine the role of archaeology within and for various publics and present a framework for integrating critical and empirical archaeologies.  I conclude with an examination of my meta-question: what is the value of archaeologies of the recent past?

The vanishing of the twelve magnificent altars set up by Alexander the Great has intrigued many scholars. This article shows that one of the altars was re-inscribed by Emperor Asoka, who was the Indo-Greek King Diodotus I. There is an indication that Alexander may have tried to promote brotherhood in these altars. It is just possible that the four-lion emblem of India may be linked to Alexander.

SUMMARY: Chapter 4, in Renfrew & Bahn's textbook (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice), covers archaeological dating methods and their applicability and limitations, including stratigraphy (relative dating), typologies (e.g., seriation), linguistic dating, climatic clues (e.g., ice & deep=sea cores), absolute dating (e.g., pollen; ancient calendars; tree-ring/dendrochronology; radiocarbon dating; potassium-argon dating; uranium-series dating; thermoluminescence dating; optical dating; electron spin-resonance dating; global events; etc.).  In my view, this is one of the best college textbooks available, and is invaluable for students, archaeologists, and the public in general, to obtain a top notch overview of approaching and interpreting the archaeological record; also including a case study on the instructor's work at a late Old Kingdom fort at Ras Budran, in South Sinai (Egypt).  REVISED: Feb. 2023.

The political structure of Scandinavian society underwent radical change between AD 500 and 1350. Through analyses of c. 170,000 sites of single graves and cemeteries, 1,700 hillforts, and 130 royal sites and manors, this article investigates the emergence of larger law areas and their relation to the peoples and kingdoms in Scandza (i.e. Norway and Sweden). In this period the number of kingdoms was reduced from around thirteen to two. We find 29 peoples in the 6th century mentioned in contemporary written sources (Getica and Widtsith), and these are geographically identified through a big data analysis of prehistoric graves and cemeteries (Kernel Density Estimation). In addition, we have identified thirteen clusters of graves representing other unmentioned groups. The emergence of larger legal entities was a prerequisite for the emergence of the Scandinavian kingdoms. In eastern Scandinavia kingship emerged through the control of major lakes connecting various folklands, while in the west control of trade and transport along the major sailing route (leden) was a driving facor for trans-regional kingship.