Gamla Uppsala - A new article...

In December 2015 a new article, Gamla Uppsala - The emergence of a centre and a magnate complex, was published in Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History. 

You may download the article, link at Archaeological Papers and Reports. Here are the Abstract.

The emergence of Gamla Uppsala as a centre has been discussed for centuries. During the past years, old excavations have been incorporated into the frame-work of the archaeological research project Gamla Uppsala - the emergence of a mythical centre (GUAM), with GIS and excavations in combination with survey results and reinterpretations, as old excavations are placed in relation to new investigations. This article is based on the results from excavations in 2011 and 2015 and studies of previous investigations in the light of new results. We have chosen to present a stand der forschung of what we currently know about the 6^th/8^th century estate in the centre of Gamla Uppsala, how it emerges as part of an unparalleled monumentalization of the area, what we know of a Migration Period prelude and its transformation during the 8^th/9^th century. Today we can discuss the relationship between a multitude of elements in the complex, such as individual mounds, the great hall, workshops, economy buildings, fences, paved courtyards, post-row monuments and not least landscape development and resource exploitation on a broad scale. In our strategic work, previously isolated monuments are tied together in a project that will continue in the years ahead. 

RAI and other visits at GUAM

During the excavation in May-June, the Gamla Uppsala Mythical Centre project (GUAM), had a lot of visits and visitors.

Among them were citizens, pupils and tourists and of course collegues from the Uppland Museum, Uppsala University, SAU, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences as well as scholars from other universities and reserach institutions.

A visit of the unusual kind we had on June 25th, when the Swedish archbishop Antje Jackelén took the opportunity to visit the excavation of the former archbishop residence.

And on the 9th of July, we were visited by some 50 members of the UK Royal Archaeological Institute (RAI).  Joakim K and myself was guiding the group at Gamla Uppsala, especially the Royal mounds and the Cathedral. The GUAM projects excavations results this and earlier years was accounted for.

Left: RAI with the Thing mound in the background. Center: On the West mound. Right: At the Southern Plateau, the place for the great Early Medieval hall.

A new book: Gamla Uppsala i ny belysning

We are happy to announce the release of a new book about Gamla Uppsala, partly funded by fundings from Gellerstedts fond/KVHAA, applied by the project. It is the result of articles written after a seminar arranged by ENES in 2011. The book is edited by O. Sundqvist and P. Vikstrand with contributions by J. Ljungkvist. Some articles are written by project members, presenting results and data from the work on the site. Here you can download the articles.

• Gamla Uppsala före formationen – ett bidrag till centralplatsens genes (Gamla Uppsala before the formation - a contribution to the genesis of the central place) av Per Frölund & Hans Göthberg

• Monumentaliseringen av Gamla Uppsala (The Monumentalization of Gamla Uppsala) av John Ljungkvist
  
• Gamla Uppsala som förkristen kultplats: en översikt och en hypotes (Gamla Uppsala as a pre-Christian cult site: an overview and a hypothesis) av Olof Sundqvist
  
• Kristna inslag i Gamla Uppsala och dess närområde (Christian elements in Gamla Uppsala and its neighborhood) av Anne-Sofie Gräslund
  
• Namnet Uppsala (The Place-name Uppsala) av Per Vikstrand
  
• Gamla Uppsala – på nytt (Gamla Uppsala – again) av Torun Zachrisson

And the preliminary results from Offerlunden

We choose to excavate in Offerlunden because of three main reasons.

Firstly we wanted to test if this major depression could contain any well preserved unburnt biological makro-fossil remains, insects or pollen as these kinds of  spots unfortunately are rare in Uppsala. On a photo from 1926 were large parts of Offerlunden filled with water, so it was reasonable that it could contain some kind of wet deposits. To find good deposits is important as the existing pollen diagrams in do not cover any phases beyond c. 500 AD. Our second reason to visit the site was a deposition of burnt juvenile pig bones found in the 1970s. A 14C-sample has been submitted in and we will get the result during the autumn. We thought that it was worth testing if this major depression could contain any further evidence of ritual deposits. Amulets, ritual depositions and other kinds of ritual activities (beside the hall building and church) are very few in manor area. Thirdly is the location of the area very interesting. It is surrounded by the boatgraves (and other graves) in the vicarage, the great mounds and a dense concentration of settlement features linked to the Iron Age manor area. It is a kind of border zone between known grave and settlement areas.

We placed two small trenches; one along the northern slope and one in lowest part of the depression. Right from the start we found massive amounts of pure rubbish from the late 19th and 20th c. Eventually did a layer of stones turn up. It was mixed with even more fairly recent rubbish. Some finds were 17th or 18th c. , but they were comparatively few and mixed up with the other stuff. A surprising find, totally out of context, was a Medieval ring brooch.
So what did we find below these layers? Well, almost nothing. There were no real prehistoric or medieval layers preserved. The exception was a probably prehistoric hearth was found dug down into the sterile sand.

It is hard not to be slightly disappointed about this result, but we are on the other hand spoiled with good results during the last years. We also knew that this trench was a gamble. A reference pit was placed a few meters away from the other trenches and slightly further up in the terrain. Here we found a culture layer with no post medieval finds and a hard clay and pebble layer below. It reveals that old well preserved layers do exist near the first trenches.

Offerlunden in 1926. Full of water and rubbish on the brinks.

It now seems like the lower parts of Offerlunden were deepened in the late 19th c. and thereafter used as a duck pond among other things. In this period was its setting not very ritual. It was placed right by the courtyard of one of the farms and also used as rubbish pit. The depression itself was probably slightly more shallow in the Iron Age but we still know little about its function in this period. We do not know whether it originally was a natural feature or not. We are still waiting for the dating of the bone deposition and the hearth. During the autumn we will also evaluate the results a bit more when we work with the report.

Sudden changes in the final days

We have now closed this years trenches and can conclude that the results and our interpretations changed very fast during the two last days. In the last blog post I wrote that we were pretty confident about having found a house on a plateau. This interpretation was based on the stone filled ditch along the plateaus eastern side. It had close similarities to the wall ditches of the southern and northern plateau houses. Another contributing factor was that the layers within the wall were many, thin, with scattered finds of coal, burnt clay and even Iron Age pottery. They looked like a series of floor layers,similar to these we found on the northern plateau.

Everything changed when we decided to make a deeper test trench on the western side to create a deeper profile and find layers from the actual plateau. Beneath sand and clay layers appeared a dark gray layer which seems to originate from a decomposed organic matter such as turf. When Joakim worked on the layer he found that it covered a massive layer of stones. The soil started to sieve down between the stones! We exposed the stones in narrow search trenches and found that they represented an at least 10 m wide cairn. It is far bigger, but it is hard to determine its size right now. Its height is also uncertain, but we can state that its top is flat and the height is more than 0,75 m. It is man made as the stone material is a mix of esker material, fire cracked stones and larger edged boulders. It is fascinating that no soil lies between the stones.

So where do we stand now before we get our 14C-datings and interpret the data further? We can see that the ditch cuts through layers related to the cairn and the mound. And it is subsequently younger than both the mound and the cairn. The house interpretation is becoming vaguer and a potential function of the ditch as an enclosure feature must be taken into consideration.

We can follow the extension of the ditch on the surface and LiDAR as a nearly 40 m long, shallow depression in the grass. The depression is cut by a hollow road that runs over the hill and this road might originate from the Late Medieval period as it is called - the church road, on a map from 1935. It stretches towards one of the Late Medieval entrances to the church-yard that disappeared in the 19th c. No finds of bricks, mortar or any other typical Late Medieval or later finds have been made in the ditch fill. In the south it also cut by a gravel pit that seems to be very old in comparison with the historical maps, i.e. probably the early 18th c. or earlier. No known houses are placed on the hill/plateau during the 18th c. or later.

The other main question is what the cairn represents and why it is placed partly beneath a mound, partly beneath the plateau. It seems like the cairn has direct stratigraphic contact with mound related layers and in that case we are dealing with an 9th mound in Gamla Uppsala of a size more than 20 m in diameter. It now seems like the plateau is artificial as the cairn runs along its base. But why and when was a mound transformed and incorporated into something which today seems to be a huge plateau? We have loads of questions to discuss and have to await a couple of 14C-samples during the autumn.

A picture taken right after the cairn has been found. The earth probe is down almost all the way in empty space between the stones (c.70 cm). To the left is the mound fill layers.

Next time we will sum up the results from Offerlunden.

A new plateau house is now confimed.

Here comes some information about recent results from the plateau. This trench has not been easy from a stratigraphic perspective. It is also an extremely dry summer and it has been hard to see colorations without sprinkling the trench. The layers are many, thin and of a varying character. It has been quite thought provoking to understand which layers that belong to the lowest part of the mound and to buildings and activities beneath.

However, we are now confident that we are excavating a very large house which is older than the mound. Some elements, especially a stone filled wall trench and also the character of different floor layers, have parallells in the houses on the northern and southern plateaus. A lot of questions remains to be answered and will not be confirmed this year. But we have an impressing buildin, placed on a partly artificial plateau. Our basic hypothesis is thus confirmed, which is very satisfying.

The wall trench of the house. On the southern and northern plateau
were similar trenches filled with caronised posts/planks/staves.

In the shadow of a burial mound

Friday and a coffee break on the mound...

The mound in question is recorded by GA Hellman from 1935; it can be seen as number 10 on the WebGis if one has the Hellman 1935 map on top right activated. The mound measures 17 x 11 m and has a slightly oval form. As can be seen from photo above it has a rather flat upper surface. In the trench we can now see a layer of clay closer to the mound followed by a brownish sandy layer with soot and some charcoal. Hopefully the latter will prove to be interesting which we will see during next week.

The first day in the field

Today we started the excavation. We began to take off the turf on both locations. On the plateau is the turf layer almost completely removed. Beneath it we found both a layer with stones and a more clayish layer. The latter is probably the fill layer of the mound been exposed. It has barely rained this summer which is problematic. It is very hard to see coloration's in the soil.
We found a couple of datable finds. The most numerous find category was couple of foil capsules that disappeared in use sometime in the 1970s and probably a more than 40 year old hose end in copper. Another datable find was a 1 öre for Oscar I or Karl XV (we need to look in the coin book). The strangest find was a large, probably 18th c. coffin mount. It seems like someone has dug up a rotten coffin on the churchyard and thrown the mount over the wall. We have fortunately not found any human remains though!

From Offerlunden we found that the top layer beneath the turf is filled with loads of fairly recent debris. It has been substantially filled up with rubbish. It is another indicator that the topography of Gamla Uppsala was far more varied just 100 years ago. The depressions in the area have been gradually filled up and some have even disappeared.

New excavations!

The research excavations in Gamla Uppsala now resuming for two weeks between August 26 and September 6. Our aim this time is to investigate two other, largely unexplored areas of the royal manor complex.

The first target is a large depression with a grove of aspen called Offerlunden (eng. The sacrificial grove). This depression has despite its name not been connected to any substantial evidence of pre- Christian rituals. But we know that the depression contained a well in the 17^th c. and is a potentially good trap for makro-fossils and pollen. This kind of data has for long been hard to find in the area as ‘wet’ contexts are surprisingly few. Our interest for Offerlunden was enhanced early this year as we examined the excavation report for a cable trench made in the 1970s. The trench ran across the edge of the depression and beneath medieval and later layers was a concentration of burnt bones found. We have only briefly examined the bones, but most of them seem to be extremities and cranial parts of young pigs (we are still waiting for 14C-datings). This means that we might have evidence for ritual activities in Offerlunden! It is also important to mention that we today have no ritual objects or major depositions of animals from a specific part of the royal manor area. This is curious as the ritual acitivities are one of the main characteristics of Gamla Uppsala in the literary sources.

Our second target is an elevated area placed between the church and the restaurant Odinsborg. This elevated plateau has been noticed as interesting by a number of researchers but no one has ever done any closer examinations. Two things make it extra interesting in our strategic aim to comprehend the manor complex as a whole. First it is the highest point in the settlement area. Secondly is the top of the plateau quite flat except for a probable grave mound. It might be that we are dealing with another very large house plateau that could be even longer than the southern plateau, and its 50 m long hall building.

It is our aim to update the blog each of the excavation days an present you with the ongoing excavation.

Bones sticking out from the trench in Offerlunden in 1972