Depositions and butchering waste

One of the primary aims of the project, is to collect a much bones as possible from good contexts. During last years trial excavations we found that the preservation conditions for bones were very good. Ostheological analyses from royal manor areas in Sweden have been made before, but the statistics are not always satisfactory and water sieving has often not been used as a method for recovering fish bones and other small bones.

The bone material from the kitchen/workshop area needs to be analysed further during this autumn and winter. We can however already see some interesting tendencies. The bones do in a high degree seem to be chopped up into small fragments. Butchery remains are not very common and occasionally there seems to be high concentations of burnt bones. They seem to represent either intensive cooking aktitivities or perhaps they were chopped up in order to be used as fuel. The latter pattern has previously been noticed on another locality in Gamla Uppsala.

A more ritually related thing is the prescence of deposited lower jaws. On the plateau are unburnt bones very rare from the phase of the burnt down hall building. If there had been large amounts of bones, they would probably have been affected the great fire. When we did find bones, they tended to be lower jaws from cattle and horse. They are most likely deposited after the fire and it is very tempting to connect them with rituals belonging to a "closure" of the house. Almost all the iron spirals are also placed in the wall line or in post holes.

Teeth from a horse jaw lying in the wall line of the hall.

Grand final






The quadruple spiral in the post-hole.

 I fredags skulle det varit den sista fältdagen innan vi återupptar undersökningarna i augusti. Så blev det inte riktigt eftersom ett par av oss ska komplettera dokumentationen i några dagar. Hursomhelst var fredagen full av arkeologiska klichéer. Det regnade i princip hela dagen. Smått ironiskt eftersom det varit varmt och soligt i fem veckor på raken. Samtidigt framträdde färgningarna av stolphål och anläggningar otroligt bra. Det var också en dag då vi råkade göra ett av de bästa fynden (ett par andra kommer behandlas längre fram). Det var nämligen så att ett makroprov skulle tas från profilen av en av de meterdjupa stolphålen till västra portens ingång. Bara en centimeter bakom profilväggen dök det upp ytterligare en järndekoration med spiralornamentik. Vi har tidigare stött på fragment av flera betydligt större järnföremål men i det här fallet var det ett närmast helt objekt av ett annat slag. Det verkar vara en stor tånge/basdel från vilken det utstålar dubbla spiraler som skapar ett volut. Den låg som sagt i botten på stolphålet och det verkar vara en mycket medveten deponering efter den stora branden.



A close up.



Husets dramatiska historia blir allt mer greppbar och de senaste dagarna har det sprudlat med anektdoter kopplade till Beowulf och Ynglingasagan. Vi har rett ut massor med frågetecken från 90-talets undersökningar. Samtidigt kryper det fram en frustrationen över att man inte kan undersöka ännu lite mer detta år. Det är som vanligt, man blir aldrig nöjd...

Summary in english:

This friday was the last day of excavation before we resume digging in August.  Of course it was raining heavily and the tempo was frantic. During the very last hours we also found one of the most exiting objects as a makro sample was taken from the profile of a excavated gate post. In the very bottom lay the so far largest object with spiral decoration. From the base/attachment part, protrudes no more than probably four spirals, forming a kind of volute ornament.



/J



A few days left

Last week was quite intense due to a number of visits from the media. The local paper (UNT), local state television (ABC) and Svenska Dagbladet all made interviews. For the project leder it was slightly embarrasing a he was heard swearing loudly on the evening news. Fortunately it was because Joakim had found the largest spiral so far, just when the reporter was on site.
Among the interviews was perhaps a visit by a japanese tv-crew the most curious. They were in Sweden making a show about the Swedes relation no nature. Old norse religion was one of the subjects and the team was happy to find a real excavation at the "pagan" centre.

We have now only three days left of the first excavation period. As usual there is a lot to do. We especially want to figure out some more about the stratigraphy of the hall building. Today the very last recognizable northern part. of the hall was uncovered. . It has definately been chopped of at some point and we will never find the gable. Another interesting thing is that we here have a clear concentration of iron spirals. Today two more were found when cleaning the damaged northern wall. We can only imagine what kind of fantastic timbers these iron objects were part of.

Fredrik has been working hard on digging a few post holes by one of the entrances. The post for the gate frame is very deep, over one meter in very hard clay. It really underlines the grandeur of the gate as it must have carried a substantial weight.

/J

More on the entrance and a strange object



Joakim standing in the entrance/gate.



We have now begun to investigate some of the feature, construction elements and stratigraphy of the plateau. In addition have we uncovered the eastern wall as long as we can until it is cut by an old large pit. We will never find the full length but the minimun length of  today is 48,8 meters. The iron spiral decorations mentioned earlier are no longer a surprise. They turn up again and again as soon as we begin to clean up the wall line. The total amount is still not counted, but today a least five spirals were made. A strange find was made yesterday. When Fredrik began to excavate a post-hole by the entrance, he found a quite large iron mount. We do not recognize the shape at all, but a pausible interpretation is that it belongs to the entrance construction. Whether it has been functional och purely decorative remains to be answered after conservation.

The iron mount found next to the entrance.

A LARGE entrance.

There has been pause in the excavation for some days due to the long weekend. On Friday we spent the day washing finds, doing makro flotating and showing the site for a newspaper and visitors.

Now we have reached as long to the north as we can along the western wall of the 8th century hall building. The length is so far 45 m. We can  unfortunately never find the full extension as the northern gable has been destroyed. A good thing however, is that that house is very symmetrical. We can mirror the southern gable upon the north, which still makes it plausible that the house was about 50 m long. A major goal for this year was to find evidence of the full length of the house and gather enough data for reconstructions. With two weeks of field work remaining, we can already state that this goal has been fulfilled. The major constructions elements that we still lack, is the placement of all the pairs of roof bearing posts. If we have time, we will uncover at least one pair on the surface this year.

Previously it has been debated whether the house had an entrance in the south or along the walls. Today it seems very clear that it had two entrances along the western side. The entrance in the north, uncovered this year, is over 3 m wide when measuring between the uncovered stone fundaments for the wall. It seems to be more of a gate than a door.

Archaeology students standing "inside" the entrance to the house.

Spåren efter metallhantverk.

Under förra årets undersökning fann vi flera spår efter metallhantverk. En medeltida härdgrop var fylld med såväl järnslagg som ugnsväggfragment. Vi fann också ett gjutformsfragment i en grop som verkar dateras till folkvandringstid. Under årets undersökning dyker återigen hantverksindikationerna upp. I en av groparna med mycket ben och makrofossil fann Josephine uppemot tio gjuformsfragment och en del var ganska stora. Tyvärr är de ganska slitna och det går inte att se vilka föremålstyper som gjutits. När det gäller järn och järnsmide så dyker det upp enstaka bitar, men vi saknar de koncentrationer av slagg och små skrotbitar man brukar finna.

Den kommande veckan kommer blir spännande eftersom en anläggning intill gropen med gjutformar är markant rödbränd och kolrik på ytan. Det luktar högtemperaturugn. Kanske för smide, kanske för gjutning...

Fredrik Thölin i aktion

Nya tydliga ingångar!



Vi har flera återkommande besökare.
Just denna kombinerar visiten med sorklunch.
Foto: Andrea.

Framrensningen av väggarna i det södra platåhuset går framåt och idag kunde vi fastställa att ingångarna i södra delen har en exakt motsvarighet i norr. Men egentliga ingångar verkar bara ha funnits i husets västra långsida eftersom "dörröppningarna" i den östra sidan blockeras av stolphål.



Vi kan nu dra flera preliminära slutsatser. Bland annat är dörröppningarna närmare tre meter breda och kan nästan definieras som portöppningar. Huset visar sig också, som vi formodade efter sammanställningen av den tidigare undersökningen, vara väldigt symmetriskt byggt. Vi kan nu följa det minst 45 meter och det har definitivt varit flera meter längre. Hela tiden dyker det upp stora och små bitar av järnspiraler och andra byggnadsdetaljer.





Järnspiral in situ. Foto: John L



Från groparna nedanför platån har vi flotterat en del jordprover och vissa innehåller massor av brända sädeskorn från kol- och askrika lager. Benmaterialet får allt mer karaktären av att vara rikligt men mycket fragmenterat. De stora benen är få och de många små fragmenten består i hög grad av splitter och sönderhuggna rörben. Är vi mitt inne i en stort matlagningsområde? Samtidigt ska man inte glömma bort att dateringarna spänner från folkvandringstid till 1600-talet och vi har inte många bra föremålsdateringar från de gropar som än så länge undersökts. Ytan tvekan haft en varierad historia som vi bara börjat nysta upp.

/John