The text examines potential ontological aspects of south Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art with a special focus on cupmarks in the Mälaren region of central- eastern Sweden. In the study, the distribution, organization and articulation of cupmarks are discussed in relation to the postglacial uplift and the material properties of the rocks. The study emphasizes how many cupmarks gather on areas of the rocks with minerals of different colours. They are also frequently arranged in ways that allow water to trickle from one to another, which some- times is facilitated by natural grooves and shallower pecked channels connect- ing two or more cupmarks. It is argued that these physical aspects of cupmark production illustrate the importance of the residual mineral powder from pecking as well as the use of water as integrated elements in the ecology of the South Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art tradition.

This study investigates the potentially generative roles of animals in the cremation ritual through an in-depth study of an excavated Late Iron Age (c. 400-1050 BCE) grave-field in North Spånga, Sweden. The animal remains in this burial ground are generally of two categories: one comprises parts from several body regions, and one entails mainly fragments of the skull and lower extremities. Although there are general distinctions between animals of the first category (dogs, horses and cats) and of the second category (sheep/goat, pigs, fowl), they are not exclusive and do not reflect a dualist view of companions versus beasts of burden or food. Moreover, the latter category is here interpreted as the remains of skinned animals with head, toe and ankle bones still attached. As such, depending on how they were arranged on the pyre, they may have worked to deflect malevolent forces during the transformative part of the cremation. The collection and deposition of the cremated bones of both animals and humans, sometimes with additional unburned bone, suggests that they were considered as generative materialities in the grave, conceivably to shelter or aid the dead post-cremation.

This text concerns interpretations of recent excavations at the large Early Iron Age burial ground Jordbro in Österhaninge, south of Stockholm. During three years between 2017–2019, six low cairns, eleven small deposits of cremated bone, ceramics and bronze fragments without superstructure, and sixteen trial trenches were excavated in the previously untouched north-eastern part of the burial site. The small deposits were found close to the rock in the northernmost part of the burial ground and comprise a hitherto unknown phase of Bronze Age burials at Jordbro. The low cairns too provided novel information about the Early Iron Age view of death and burial. For example, the consistent asymmetry between the burial pit and the superstructures indicates a prolonged burial ritual where the latter was erected sometime after the inhumation of the bodies. Moreover, the careful selection and use of stone and different minerals in the burials is interpreted as an intentionally compiled assemblage arranged for generative purposes rather than to constitute memorials over dead individuals only.

The Bronze Age (1700–500 BCE) petroglyphs of southern Scandinavia comprise a unique tradition of rock art in northern Eurasia. Despite a limited repertoire of motifs such as cupmarks, boats, anthropomorphs, zoomorphs, podomorphs and circles, it shows great variability in design, elaboration and articulation. This book is a study of the Mälaren region in southern-central Sweden that includes one of the most prominent rock art clusters of southwest Uppland as well as the hinterland of Södermanland county. The rock art in this region is studied on three scales: regional, local and particular. This allows for comparisons between dense and small sites, an exploration of how the Bronze Age rock art tradition developed over time in the area, and equally how the design and articulation of certain motifs relate to contemporary settlements, waterways and varying environmental settings.

Patterns and structures in the distribution and articulation of the petroglyphs show that the different motifs are not only visual expressions but very much material enactments. The motifs often physically relate to each other, the flows of water, and the microtopography and mineral contents of the rocks. The study is therefore not as much about rock art as images and symbols as it is about the ecology of rock art – the web of social and physical relations in which it was enacted and employed. From this perspective, the petroglyphs are seen as petrofacts, that is something akin to tools or devices articulated in various ways to affect humans, other-than-humans and the animacies of the coastal milieus where they were made.

Under tre år (2017–19) har institutionen för arkeologi och antikens kultur bedrivit fältkurser på Jordbrogravfältet i Österhaninge, Södermanland (L2014:3046). Sex stensättningar undersöktes på gravfältet. En rund övertorvad stensättning i gravfältets sydöstra utkant, en oregelbunden i gravfältet mellersta del, samt en rund, en fyrsidig och två tresidiga gravar i gravfältets nordöstra del. Samtliga stensättningar väster om gångvägen tolkades utifrån formen på stenkistor och ned- grävningar samt fynd av tandemalj som jordbegravningar, vilka indirekt kan dateras till huvud- sakligen romersk järnålder. Den övertorvade stensättningen i den sydöstra delen var en krema- tionsgrav med något senare datering i övergången mellan romersk järnålder–folkvandringstid vilket antyder en generell horisontell stratigrafi i sydöstlig riktning. Gravarna i den nordöstra delen överlagrade delvis åtta ben- och keramikdepositioner/gravgömmor, tre mindre gravar från yngre bronsålder samt boplatslämningar från stenålder. I området utan synliga anläggningar syd- öst om gravfältet grävdes sammanlagt 16 sökschakt om 1x4–7m. I dessa framkom stolphål och odlingspår från huvudsakligen historisk tid, men även en härdbotten och en nedgrävning med krossad keramik av äldre järnålderskaraktär.

The different documentation methods of rock art all have their pros and cons in recording petroglyphs. Traditionally it is the figurative content that has been in focus, but because Bronze Age motifs often relate to and incorporate the topography and mineral composition of the rock there is a need to also capture these aspects to a higher degree. The new 3D-techniques offer interesting possibilities to achieve this. Hitherto, handheld scanners and photogrammetrical approaches have been employed to record smaller areas of rock art but they are only rarely capable of capturing a larger part of an outcrop. To capture a fuller context of the petroglyphs, we have evaluated the potential of other types of 3D-scanners; a Multistation scanner, Leica MS60 and a dedicated dome-scanner, Leica RTC360, to record seven whole rock outcrops with rock art in central-eastern Sweden. Our tests conclude that although the scanners perform parts of the recording process differently, they both are capable of capturing even faint petroglyphs as well as the curvature and topography of a whole outcrop, including textures in colour. 

Projektet digitala bilder för forskning och publik syftade till att utveckla en digital dokumentationsstrategi för hällbilder anpassad för aktuella forskningsfrågor kring bronsålderns bildbruk. Metoden utgick från en flexibel kombination av två- och tredimensionell dokumentation som utöver själva bilderna också omfattar hela hällarna. De tredimensionella modellerna är tänkta att ligga till grund för både forskning och publik förmedling utan behov av destruktiva metoder som att framhäva bilderna med färg. De utgör även ett digitalt underlag för skade- inventering och analys av slitage och vittring av hällarna.Projektet dokumenterade 36 hällar i sydvästra Uppland med olika metoder. Av dessa tolkades 31 okulärt och 27 med tredimensionella tekniker. Projektet utvärderade olika metoder och apparatur som Structure from motion (SfM), fotogrammetri med stereopar, 3D-scanners (Leica MS60 och RTC360). Mest effektiv visade sig vara en kombination av okulär besiktning (tolkning) och 3D- modeller skapade genom SfM vilket fångade såväl svaga ristningsfigurer som hällens mikrotopografi. En positiv synergieffekt av projektet var också många nyfynd av tidigare okända figurer samt nya tolkningar av tidigare kända motiv.

In Scandinavian Early Bronze Age rock art (c. 1700–500 BC) anthropomorphic figures largely consist of simple stick figures that only occasionally relate to other motifs. Although they do not seem to ‘dO' much, their composition is often more complex than what first meets the eye. For instance, a significant portion of the anthropomorphs lacks one or more body parts and seem to have been deliberately made anonymous. It is argued that this fragmentary and generic appearance of the anthropomorphic petroglyphs is related to the function of rock art as vitalist devices. The allure of partial and vague motifs can attract, trap, confuse, create ambiguity, and stress, as well as promote curiosity, fascination, and incite subsequent actions by humans and other-than-humans. These issues are explored through a study of the anthropomorphic rock art motifs of the Mälaren Bay in eastern-central Sweden.

This text comprises a critical discussion of assemblage theory and its application to burial studies. In recent research, burials have been viewed as fluid and indeterminate assemblages that 'become' in varied ways depending on different perceptions (concepts and ideas) and apparatuses (e.g. excavation tools and measuring instruments). The past and the present are thus mixed in potentially ever-new configurations which run the risk of replacing epistemological relativism with ontological fluidity. It is argued here that the hypothetical mutability of burial assemblages can be reduced significantly by addressing the varying speed and degree of the involved processes of integration and disintegration. By doing this, the main focus is shifted to the animacy of such processes and how they may have been understood and utilized in burials. Using both general and specific examples, it is argued that cremation burials can be studied as carefully compiled amalgamations that utilize the properties and animacies of different materialities to deal with death, corpses and the afterlife.