Finds

2016-09-12

A new book

When Mats P. Malmer started new excavations at the Alvastra Pile Dwelling between the year 1976 and 1980 the excavation area was divided up into four trenches – the Eastern, the Western, the Middle and the Investigation trenches. Investigations in these trenches were directed by four different archaeologists – Mats P. Malmer (Eastern), Hans Browall ...
2016-09-02

One soil sample is all it takes

Parasitic diseases at the Alvastra pile dwelling By  Jonas Bergman, Archaeologists, Swedish History Museums Even after 86 years in dry storage (!), and almost 5000 years in the Alvastra bog, it’s still possible to find intestinal parasite eggs in relatively good condition from the culture layers of the Alvastra pile dwelling. After a brief preparation of ...
2016-08-03

Alvastra blog welcomes its first guest

      In Sweden the summer holidays are already starting to come to an end. All the members of our team will be back at work next week and we will start publishing blog posts to keep you updated on the progress of the project. In the meantime we have a guest post written by ...
2016-06-07

Visit to Lund – What About the Pottery?

When the Alvastra project visited Lund in order to present our work with other Stone Age archaeologists we also got the opportunity to visit the collections at Lund University Historical Museum (LuHM). Greg was interested in the flint from Jonstorp and Stävie and I was of course interested in pottery! The sites that were of specific ...
2016-05-13

Another bead

Photographed from Montelius’ publication by Ola Myrin, SHMM. In this phographed version the scale is not 1:1. The bead is only 29 mm long and 19 mm wide. On the 29 September last year I wrote a blog post about the small bone bead found at the Alvastra pile dwelling. I said that I knew ...
2016-04-29

Hear ye, hear ye!

We are pleased to inform you that the flint material with find numbers from the eastern trench is now photographed and ready for you to look at. You can find all of the registered finds if you follow the link below or if you visit our website and browse your way to Sök i samlingarna! ...
2016-04-14

Visit to Lund

Recently, the Alvastra team went on a visit to Lund, in Southern Sweden, to take part and present our project for a group of Stone Age archaeologists active in that region of the country. While we were there, Nathalie and I spent a day studying artifacts held in the collections of Lund University. The purpose ...
2016-02-23
2

What is in the Alvastra box? part 3

The third and final post in our series What’s In the Alvastra Box reveals the secrets of the pottery sherds that were found during the excavation of the box. The primary question that drove our curiosity in the first place was whether or not the pottery in the box could be remnant pieces of the ...
2016-02-11
6

What’s in the Alvastra box? Part 2

  Fig. 1. The peat block before investigation. Photo Hilde Skogstad, SHM  Introduction On 15 July 1930 a block of peat was cut out of Dagsmosse mire and put into a wooden box with a nailed on lid. Apart from the date (in fact two dates occur on the box 15/7-30 and 30/6-30), archaeologists also ...
2016-01-26
3

What is in the Alvastra box? Part 1

We in the Alvastra project are excited to be excavating, in-house, a 25cm square block of in situ peat, soil and artifacts, cut and preserved from the site in 1930. It was placed and sealed in a wooden box immediately after removal and shipped to the museum. The block in the box, upon opening, before ...