Landscape Archaeology

The paper debates human-environment relationships in the Plain of Sybaris, during pre- and protohistory, up to the transformations in settlement and landscape management of the archaic and classical age, following the foundation of Sybaris. Data coming from geomorphological research, deep cores and surveys are analyzed. It seems that a phase of high human-driven impact, ensuing from Neolithization, was replaced, during protohistory, by landscape management systems more suitable for slope stability an conservation; the colonial phase marks a further improvement.

"RESUMEN: El antiguo sitio maya de T’isil ha sido mapeada por el Proyecto Regional Yalahau de Ecología Humana durante varias temporadas de trabajo de campo. Un hallazgo inesperado del proyecto ha sido la evidencia de planificación de la comunidad en base a un modelo conceptual de tresbolillo (quincunx). El patrón de tresbolillo consiste en cenotes (pozos naturales) que marcan un punto central y tres esquinas, con una cuarta esquina definida por un hoyo excavado que parece imitar a un cenote. Si bien se han identificado principios de planificación de sitios en los principales centros cívico-ceremoniales mayas del período clásico, la disposición de tresbolillo de T‘isil es un ejemplo de los principios de planificación de sitios aplicados en una comunidad relativamente pequeña por lo menos desde el periodo Preclásico Terminal.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die antike Maya-Stätte von T’isil wurde durch das Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project im Verlauf mehrerer Feldkampagnen kartiert. Ein unerwartetes Ergebnis der Kartierung bestand in der Erkenntnis, dass der Planung des Ortes ein so genanntes Quincunx Konzept zugrunde zu liegen scheint. Das Quincunx-Muster in T’isil wird von einem zentralen Cenote gebildet, um den herum drei weitere Cenotes sowie eine künstlich angelegte Grube ein symmetrisches Muster bilden – wobei die Grube einen an ihrer Stelle fehlenden natürlichen Cenote nachzuahmen scheint. Während in den größeren Maya-Zentren der Klassik häufig Kriterien der der Raumplanung identifiziert wurden, ist das Quincunx-Layout von T’isil ein Beispiel für die Raumplanung einer kleineren Gemeinschaft dar, die mindestens bis auf die Späte Präklassik zurückgeht."""

This paper examines the range of strategies available to those communities, groups and individuals engaged in negotiating enclosure, common rights and land use change in early sixteenth-century England. It examines the relationship between litigation and direct action, paying particular attention to those self help strategies other than hedge-breaking – itself already the subject of considerable scholarly interest – by which enclosure and agricultural change could be promoted or resisted. The paper focuses on strategies such as animal and human trespasses, animal rescues and mass ploughings, highlighting the importance of occupation and trespass as ways of resisting the extension of private property rights, even whilst possession was also property’s ultimate aim. In doing so, the paper explores enclosure and land use change as an ongoing process and contested practice through which local communities and individuals played a key role in the making of modern property relations.

The work is divided into two parts : the first one considers the singular city as a socio-spatial entity, identified through the intervention of the archaeologists' work. Beyond the recent conceptual arguments, it is a question of considering the practice of urban archaeology in its multifaceted aspects, institutional and methodological, before opening a reflection on its current developments in four specific scopes (archaeomorphology, chorematic, buildings archaeology and ancient environment) ; wherein lies a potential widening of the fields, of the approaches and the exploration of new paradigms. The second part considers the city in terms of networks and systems, from a theoretical viewpoint at first and then through three case studies, illustrating the idea that the city does not define itself only by its own characteristics but also, and no doubt chiefly, in the interactive spatial relationships that it entertains with other towns and with the territory.

During the eighteenth century, travelers throughout America's mid-Atlantic region often recorded in diaries and letters the scenery they observed on their journeys. As they rode inland along the river valleys or followed roads connecting coastal ports, these writers repeatedly used specific terms to capture their experience of sight in the landscape. This vocabulary of vision—view, vista, eminence, situation, prospect—appears in descriptions of both the natural landscape and the estates of the colonial planter-gentry. Describing Gov. John Howard's garden in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1794, Thomas Twining wrote:

""År 2007 genomförde Sörmlands museum en mindre undersökning av den medeltida Kilakastalen, strax väster om Nyköping.
Under 2012 utförde samma institution i samarbete med Södertörns högskola en fortsatt undersökning av denna plats.
Föreliggande studie är ett försök till att bättre teckna kastalens landskapsrum med speciell betoning på strandbunden-het, där strandlinjen och strandmiljön är
särskilt viktig att förstå, t.ex. i kommuni-kativt, fortifikatoriskt och monumentalt avseende. Detta görs genom att återska-pa naturmiljön kring kastalen under dess
anläggningstid för att om möjligt bättre kunna förstå vilka förutsättningar miljön har erbjudit t.ex. med avseende på land-förbindelse, markytnyttjande och vallgra-var samt om den har kunnat fungera som
hamn- och bryggplats för skepp, dvs. som en maritim nodpunkt i skärningspunkten med landbaserad kommunikation.""

""Narrative Trajectories between Nodal Points in the Cultural Landscape
– The Eriksgata of King Ingjald.

This paper will discuss the fictional narrative of king Ingjald in Heimskringla and Ynglingatal. The story of Ingjald may best be described as a mercurial career in arson. In my interpretation of this text as an archaeologist, I would like to emphasize the narrative structure in relation to archaeological finds and place names rather than get entangled in the spurious historicity of the protagonists. The episode of Ingjald is there as a narrative concept in the shape of a life’s journey. When analyzing this, it becomes apparent that it is not the traditional cyclical itinerary where a kleptocratic ruler travels between his farms that is under the loupe. By contrast, the narrative is linear with three consecutive arsons serving as nodal foci. This trajectory can be applied to the cultural landscape of the Mälar Valley. In this paper, it will be argued that the trajectory of the story essentially follows the Eriksgata from Uppsala to Rönö in time and space (Fischer 2005:188-90). Although the Eriksgata is first mentioned only in the law code of Uppland, Upplandslagen of 1296, new research on the Migration Period and Vendel Period burials and gold hoards, as well as Viking Period runestones, will highlight the importance of certain relevant central places and place names along this route that are also mentioned in the written sources (Arrhenius 2004, Fischer and Victor 2008). The first journey of the Eriksgata has traditionally been described as departing from Uppsala across Lake Mälaren into Södermanland. In its second leg in the inland hundred of Daga, it was said to pass between Norrtuna and Södertuna in Vårdinge parish before turning southwest by Björnlunda via the Sö 2 Axala inscription on a rock wall along the route. Then the Eriksgata arrived in Aspa, with four runestones along the route, past the Aspa hög, a possible legal mound. The exact itinerary of the next step is more uncertain. The story unfolds as follows:

The other children at play pick upon Prince Ingjald. At the insistence of his foster father Svipdag the blind, young Ingjald eats a wolf’s heart as a child (Ynglingasaga 34).

Ingjald’s father Anund dies. (Ynglingasaga 35).

Ingjald vows to enlarge his inherited kingdom in front a group of invited neighboring potentates. These petty kings are then subject to arson in Uppsal (Ynglingasaga 36).

A rival king, Hiorvard Ylving arrives in Myrkvafior∂r (Ynglingasaga 37). This ought to be Mörköfjärden.

War in Svithio∂ (Ynglingasaga 38). This name first appears on Sö Fv1948;289, the third node discussed below.

Granmar is arsoned Sili (Ynglingasaga 39). This ought to be in the area of Kolsundet on Selaön, but as Wessén notes (1952:43): ”Första vokalens kvantitet ses ej av hs”. This is the site of Tuna in Ytterselö parish on Selaön in Södermanland. Here, I shall focus on the cremation burial ground of Tunaby Mellangård (SHM 9435), excavated at the turn of the 20th century by the Swedish archaeologist Bernhard Salin and his Finnish collegue Alfred Hackman. Grave 24, with an the unusual find of a barbaric imitation of a solidus struck for emperor Theodosius II sometime after 441 AD has remained somewhat of a riddle (e.g. Åberg 1953). I have since been able to show that the imitation is die-identical with a 1991 find from the solidus hoard of Botes, Etelhem parish, Gotland (Fischer 2008). With 84 solidi from the period 402-533, the Botes hoard is the largest solidus hoard in Scandinavia (Fagerlie 1967, hoard 137b).

[Bild: SHM 9435]. The solidus imitation from Tunaby Mellangård. After Janse 1922.

Ingjald and his daughter Åsa are arsoned in Ræningi (Ynglingsaga 40). The third important central place is to be found in Aspa and Ludgo parishes in Rönö, Södermanland. Here, the Daga hundred legal assemblies and execution grounds and runic inscriptions line the Eriksgata before the journey stretches across Rönö south via Jönåker and Kolmården to Svintuna in Östergötland. Wessén (1952:44) shows that this place name is sometimes spelled differently: ræningi, reiningi. Cf. Codex Frisianus (attributed by Wessén to an Icelandic scribe, 1325): rauningi. Cf. Sö Fv1948;289 ostrith : lit : -ira : ku(m)... ...usi ÷ at : anunt ÷ auk : raknualt : sun : sin ÷: urthu : ta...R : - (t)an...-...(k)u : ua-u : rikiR : o rauniki : ak : snialastiR : i : suithiuthu. Jansson (1987:105) argues for Codex Frisianus as the correct source and argues that its location is identical to Aspa, Ludgo parish.

Åberg, N., 1953. Den historiska relationen mellan folkvandringstid och vendeltid. KVHAA. Stockholm.

Arrhenius, B., 2004. “Det forntida Sveariket: en myt eller en arkeologisk realitet?” KVHAA Årsbok, pp. 203–227. Stockholm.

Fagerlie, J.M., 1967. Late Roman and Byzantine Solidi Found in Sweden and Denmark.
American Numismatic Society 157. New York.

Fischer, S., 2004. “Kulturell mångfald i Södermanland under folkvandrings- och vendeltid?”
Agneta Åkerlund, ed. Kulturell mångfald i Södermanland, del 2. Länsstyrelsen i Södermanland, rapport. Nyköping.

Fischer, S., 2005. Roman Imperialism and Runic Literacy – The Westernization of Northern Europe (150-800 AD). Aun 33. Uppsala.

Fischer, S., 2008. ”Brief Events and Long-Term Change – The Slow Impact of Foreign Influences in Valsgärde”. S. Norr, ed. Valsgärde Studies. the Place and its People, Past and Present. OPIA 43. Uppsala.

Fischer, S. and Victor, H., 2008: ”De gnistrande kammargravarna i Lilla Sylta.” M. Olausson, (ed.). Hem till Jarlabanke. Jord, makt och evigt liv i östra Mälardalen under järnålder och medeltid. Stockholm.

Jansson, S. B. F. 1987. The Runes of Sweden. Uppsala.

Janse, O., 1922. Le travail de l’or en Suède à l’époque mérovingienne. Etudes précédées d’un mémoire sur les solidi romains et byzantins trouvés en Suède. Orléans.

Wessén, E., ed. 1952. Ynglingsaga. Stockholm.""

"In northern South Africa, foragers lived in isolation during the early and middle Holocene (van Doornum 2005). Iron Age farming people moved into the region and settled in close proximity to foragers’ ca. AD 900. Farmers first settled on the landscape to hunt elephants to trade their ivory for cloth and glass beads imported from the Indian Ocean coast (Mitchell 2002). Around AD 1000, a new community of farmers moved into the area and set up the major farming centre of K2 and later, around AD 1220, Mapungubwe, southern Africa’s first urban centre and capital of its earliest state (Huffman 2007). As the Iron Age cultural sequence of the region changed, so did that of the foragers and at the end of the Mapungubwe phase ca. 1300, foragers disappeared completely from the archaeological record (van Doornum 2008).

This paper presents findings from recent work from northern South Africa."