Traces of Iron Age activities at Kullen - A New Synthesis

Sammanfattning: Kullen has had a huge gap in knowledge about the Iron Age period. This thesis offers a new synthesis to close this gap in knowledge of the Iron Age period in the region. The aim of this study was to gain more knowledge about the Iron Age and the activities during this period in the areas. Kullen has been inhabited since the last Ice Age to modern times based on archaeological data and historical records. The period has been deprioritized in the previous research, even if the finds and remains in the landscape can tell us about interesting presences. Spatial analysis was the performed method to visualize a more distinct view of the locations and relations between the different archaeological remains in the landscape. Through a landscape archaeological perspective, the landscape is treated as a container for the different activities and sites within the society, interpreted from the assemblages of finds, remains and place names, as well as the entanglements between humans and things. The affordance perspective was also used in order to interlink the landscape with these assemblages and entanglements. Through these relations, activities linked to economic- and religious purposes, as well as different functions of sites were interpreted. These activities were later inserted into the general pattern of social structures during the Iron Age in Scania and here, interpretations of a possible structure with a presence of leading farms and centers were executed. Through these patterns, a perspective of how the previous cultural landscapes and activities have been fundamental for the contemporary landscape emerged. This thesis is an example of landscape studies that can identify traces from past societies even if the archaeological material is small and could possibly contribute to future research of the areas in Kullen with both new synthesis and questions to the archaeological material.