Spridningen av tamkatten i Sydskandinavien : Ett bidrag till undersökningen av romaniseringen av Sydskandinavien under äldre järnålder

Sammanfattning: A number of phenomena, such as new ways of farming, new crops and new domestic animals, derived from the Roman Empire during the Roman Iron Age. In this study, an attempt is made at describing the dispersion of the domestic cat to and in Southern Scandinavia. Domestication of animals in general and of the cat in particular is described, along with the Romanization of Europe. A description is made of a number of archaeological investigations carried out in Denmark and Southern Sweden where remains of the domestic cat have been found. Questions of representativity and criticism of sources are discussed.                                The results of this study imply that the domestic cat first appeared in Jutland in the second century AD, then spread east to the rest of Denmark, to the larger Baltic Islands and mainland Sweden at approximately the same time as Roman artefacts and some domestic birds. The intentions of the Romans and the Scandinavians are discussed and the conclusion is drawn that the Romans probably dispersed cats along with other gifts for diplomatic rather than commercial purposes and that the Scandinavians initially regarded cats as prestige objects rather than rodent killers during the Roman Iron Age. Later, cats where distributed over Scandinavia and took on other tasks. They were sometimes buried with humans and may have taken on a certain status and mythological meaning.