Two new excavation reports

Recently have two new excavation reports from the project been completed. The first deals with the 2013 excavations at Offerlunden (sacrificial grove) and the Östra terrassen (eastern terrace), while the second cover investigations made in 2014 around the Högåsen burial ground.

2013
The Offerlunden excavation took place in- and outside a major depression, which in the early 20th c. contained water. The name, Offerlunden, derives from the famous Swedish 1600^th c. scientist Olof Rudbäck the elder. He argued for a pagan sanctuary in Uppsala with grooves, wells and altars. Our main objectives were to check the preservation conditions for prehistoric and medieval layers in the depression and to examine the potential for well-preserved remains of insects, macrofossils and pollen. These kinds of data have so far been difficult to recover in Gamla Uppsala, due to dry conditions and few excavated wells. The second goal was to examine if a deposition animal bones found in 1972 might represent ritual depositions in the well.


The excavation showed that that the depression has been redesigned more than once, especially during the 19^th/20^th centuries, when it was a dirty combination of a duck pond and a rubbish pit. There were no signs of deposited of animal bones or layers with well-preserved floral or insect remains in the trenches. However, we found a hearth, ¹⁴C-dated to 7^th c, which was dug into naturally deposited sand layer. The stratigraphic sequence indicates that the depression existed already by the Vendel period. By then it hardly contained water as it did in the early 20^th c.

On basis of our excavation results in combination with an earlier test trench, it seems like the depression has been created before or during the 7^th century. Later has a hearth been placed near the bottom of the pit. This might simply be a quarry pit that has been dug in order to get building material for the great mounds.  A small trial pit dug just the depression showed some settlement features, which together with the said hearth connects larger settlement area from the Late Iron Age, placed by foot of the great mounds.

At the eastern terrace we found traces of an older land surface and a stone filled foundation trench with postholes with corresponding activity layers. The foundation trench could be observed visually in the grass along the eastern side of the terrace. It has been ¹⁴C-dated to 1160-1290 CE. This period is very close to the period in use of the cathedral, 1164-1273 CE. However, it was not clear whether the foundation trench constituted a part of a building or a bounding construction. Beneath the foundation trench were sandy layers and a stratigraphically older, very large cairn identified. This cairn has an upper flat surface and we could follow how it sloped down to the east. It has the shape of a partially curved cairn with a prevalence of at least 15-20 m in diameter. Bones from the layers immediately above stone cairn was ¹⁴C-dated to the middle of the 7th century.

Section through the mound with light-dark layers.

The report describes the state of knowledge after the excavations in 2013. The subsequent excavations in 2015 has revealed that that the cairn and the small earth mound on top of the terrace represent the remains of a once very large great mound. The cairn is in fact the biggest found so far in Middle Sweden. The terrace is built from the earth of the mound. It has simply been levelled out in probably the 12th century, maybe because it has blocked the view for the cathedral. After that has the foundation ditch for a palisade around the cathedral area been placed on the terrace.



2014
In 2014, focus was set at two areas adjacent to the large burial ground of Högåsen in Gamla Uppsala

The first feature was a strange, about 100 m long gently curved wall feature, located just southwest of West Mound. We wanted to examine if this was a prehistoric embankment. But the excavation showed that the formation is a result of extensive measures of the National Heritage Board from the 1920s onwards (Gustawsson 1949). Högåsen is the most prominent burial ground in the area, but it from an antiquarian perspective it was in a bad state. The National Heritage board eventually started a process where farms and houses on the burial ground were removed, graves were repaired and the landscape turned into the park we see today. We struck upon forgotten efforts from this restoration process as the wall feature was largely constructed from 20th century destruction debris. It is interesting that the early 20th century antiquarians wanted to create some kind of original state of the burial ground. But in this process they also added new features to the landscape.

Stripping of topsoil south of the royal mounds (Kungshögarna).

The second area includes anomalies from a magnetometer survey that two different rows of large postholes (Trinks & Biwall 2011). One row ran E-W and has been partially excavated due to the expansion of the railway line north of Uppsala (Beronius, Göthberg, Seiler & Wikborg 2013). Another 12 anomalies were interpreted as a second row, running N-S along the Högåsen burial ground.  Our excavation strengthened the survey results for the post row line running E-W. We have probably found its western end and in the process of stripping the topsoil, a new and previously unknown post foundation was found. This had not been captured by the magnetometer survey. The results from excavating the second row were totally different. A total of four anomalies were excavated. They consisted of a Migration Period hearth, layers of cultivation, a natural formation and the offprint of a removed boulder.

Posthole 549 associated with the E-W post row line.

This was the first time that larger surfaces were unveiled in the SW part of Gamla Uppsala. There were no traces of damaged graves in the area and only a few settlement related features. Graves cannot however, be ruled out in the area as the southern parts of the burial ground have been damaged by the plow. The area does not seem to be have been deep plowed. The nearest settlement from the early Iron Age is more than 400 m away, so the Migration Period hearth is interesting. Is it a form of activities in the outback of this period, or does it represent the edge of a settlement or even grave related activities from a phase where we still lack burials in this area.

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.

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