Archaeology, School of Cultural Sciences

The book presents a classification system for Scandinavian flint for use by archaeologists. Flint types are described and evaluated in terms of knappability, limitations posed by nodule size, and prehistoric availability. Flint formation, geographic distribution of flint sources, ...

We need to define in advance a response to the great issues of the next two decades, to define a future just as we have always presumed to create the past. Archaeology is about change and time; future time differs only from past time in its pace, and as a profession we should be able to adjust to the future, and direct it, more than most.

Dokumentation från seminariet "Arkeologi -splittring eller mångfald?" den 7 och 8 december 2004. Dokumentationen är producerad vid Riksantikvarieäbetets Kulturmiljöavdelning, Stockholm, december 2005. Omslagsfoto: Arbete i schaktet vid en arkeologisk utgrävning av kvarteret Professorn 1 i Sigtuna.

Vid uppdragsarkeologiska undersökningar vid Hyllie i södra Malmö kommun åren 2002 och 2005 påträffades omfattande lämningar från den sena trattbägarkulturen, period III av mellanneolitikum A (fig. 1). Denna fas var omkring två århundraden lång och dateras till omkring år 3000 cal BC. Man tog till vara rika och varierade fynd från tre stora nedgrävningar på fastigheten Hyllie 155:91 (se Andréasson et al. 2008; Skoglund 2008 för utförliga presentationer av platsen och utgrävningsresultaten). Syftet med denna artikel är att presentera de analyser som utförts vilka leder fram till en tolkning där vi menar att platsen kan ha fungerat som en festplats för familjegrupper från trakten. Ytterligare ett syfte är att diskutera de konsekvenser som tolkningen

Archaeology is the study of the past and its remains in the present. It is relevant to the long-term preservation of records, knowledge and memory, e.g. regarding final repositories of nuclear waste, in two ways. Firstly, future archaeology may promise the recovery of lost information, knowledge and meaning of remains of the past. Secondly, present-day archaeology can offer lessons about how future societies will make sense of remains of the past.
Archaeology is always situated in a larger social and cultural context and the information, knowledge and meaning it generates is necessarily of its own present. Archaeological knowledge reflects contemporary perceptions of past and future; these perceptions change over time. Indeed, we cannot assume that in the future there will be any archaeology at all. We think, therefore, that future societies will want, and need, to make their own decisions about sites associated with nuclear waste, based on their own perceptions of past and future. To facilitate this process in the long term we need to engage each present, keeping safe options open.
In this text we elaborate on these issues from our perspective as archaeologists (see also Holtorf and Högberg, 2013; 2014a; 2014b; and forthcoming).

och Cornelius Holtorf, arkeologer vid Fakulteten för Konst och Humaniora vid Linnéuniversitetet GRASCA är Linnéuniversitetets nya forskarskola i uppdragsarkeologi. Forskarskolan har som syfte att bedriva samhällsrelevant arkeologisk forskning och utveckla nya användningsområden för arkeologin. Svensk uppdragsarkeologi har genomgått stora förändringar. Sedan några år tillbaka är branschen fullt konkurrensutsatt. Det innebär att arkeologiska utgrävningskontrakt utvärderas genom anbudsförfarande. Detta hanteras av länsstyrelserna som värderar anbuden i relation till kunskapsbehov och kommersiella villkor. Samhället har också genom nya kulturpolitiska mål och nationella mål för arbetet med kulturmiljön, konkretiserade genom Riksantikvarieämbetets Föreskrifter och allmänna råd för uppdragsarkeologi, definierat nya mål för de uppdragsarkeologiska verksamheterna. Dessa omfattar krav på att branschen ska skapa samhällsrelevant kunskap. Därför utvärderas anbuden numera även i relation till hur den planerade verksamheten påverkar samhället.

European archaeology has long been in thrall of the three period system based on raw material: Stone, Bronze and Iron. The article begins with a short discussion questioning the efficacy of this division. Thereafter we present a case study concerning flint technology present in the Bronze Age of southern Scandinavia, namely long blade knives. When we examine debitage from production of long blade knives we find that a dichotomy between specialized workshop production and ad hoc settlement production emerges. If we contrast production and distribution systems for long blade knives of flint with contemporary systems for bronze production and distribution, interesting similarities and differences may emerge.

Although the future is mentioned frequently in overarching aims and visions, and it is a major drive in the daily work of archaeological heritage managers and indeed heritage professionals more generally, it remains unclear precisely how an overall commitment to the future can best inform specific heritage practices. It seems that most archaeologists and other heritage professionals cannot easily express how they conceive of the future they work for, and how their work will impact on that future. The future tends to remain implicit in daily practice which operates in a continuing, rolling present. The authors argue that this needs to change because present-day heritage management may be much less beneficial for the future than we commonly expect.

In this contribution, we address a major puzzle in the evolution of human material culture: If maturing individuals just learn their parental generation's material culture, then what is the origin of key innovations as documented in the archeological record? We approach this question by coupling a life-history model of the costs and benefits of experimentation with a niche-construction perspective. Niche-construction theory suggests that the behavior of organisms and their modification of the world around them have important evolutionary ramifications by altering developmental settings and selection pressures. Part of Homo sapiens' niche is the active provisioning of children with play objects — sometimes functional miniatures of adult tools — and the encouragement of object play, such as playful knapping with stones. Our model suggests that salient material culture innovation may occur or be primed in a late childhood or adolescence sweet spot when cognitive and physical abilities are sufficiently mature but before the full onset of the concerns and costs associated with reproduction. We evaluate the model against a series of archeological cases and make suggestions for future research.

Dating to roughly 80,000 to 70,000 years ago, components of the Still Bay technocomplex of southern Africa and their potential behavioural implications have been widely discussed. Stone points with invasive retouch, as defined over 90 years ago by Goodwin and van Riet Lowe, serve as markers for Still Bay assemblages, yet many Still Bay sites remain undated and comprehensive, comparable sets of data for their point assemblages remain unpublished. Much of the Middle Stone Age at the site of Apollo 11 in Namibia was undated until 2010, when a potential Still Bay component was announced. Although a Still Bay assemblage at Apollo 11 would represent the most northwesterly and inland expression of this technocomplex, its points have never been fully
analysed. This paper presents their morphometric data and an interpretation of point-production strategies. These results are then compared with data obtained for two South African sites: Hollow Rock Shelter in the Western Cape and Umhlatuzana in KwaZulu-Natal. This comparison demonstrates that whereas there are no statistically significant differences in the morphometric data sets between the three sites, there are both similarities and differences in point-production strategies, cross-section shapes and the use of raw materials for knapping. It is suggested that these similarities and variations represent aspects of how knowledge-transfer systems and knapping conventions were followed on both intra-regional and inter-regional scales.