Frödins trench

2017-01-27

Peat block from C9 – turned upside down

Presentation by Hans Browall, 2017-01-16 (edited 2017-01-25) I read with great interest last year’s blog posts on the excavation of the peat block from the Alvastra pile dwelling. The block was removed during the 1930 excavations and the project group assumed that it had lain under the clay vessel SHM 16374:C9,1 in the east ...

2016-12-01

From the Middle Neolithic to the Middle Ages

Textile fragment during excavation. Photo: Nathalie Hinders, SHMM We already know that the Dags mosse mire was not only used during the Middle Neolithic. The material traces of these post Stone Age activities are by no means comprehensive but they do exist. The radiocarbon analysis of human bones revealed one individual from the Early Roman ...

2016-10-26

Awaiting a date

Now one of our textile fragments (see blog post from 11 February 2016) has arrived at the radiocarbon dating laboratory in Brussels. We will inform you of the date as soon as we get it so keep a check on this space.

2016-02-23

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

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

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 ...

2015-12-11

A Fragmented Whole

The ceramic material found at the pile dwelling is fragmented. Most of the time I am working with and trying to understand small fragments that weigh around 5-10g. It is common to work with smaller sherds when studying the Pitted Ware pottery due to the fact that the vessels were intentionally broken during the Neolithic. ...

2015-11-20

A Miniature Vessel Found in the Storeroom

As we are progressing with our work with registering the material from the recent excavations at Alvastra pile dwelling we also have to study earlier research concerning the materials found during the excavations in 1909-1930. When we recently discussed the literature we became interested in a few sherds that were mentioned in Browall 2011. “One ...