Tjärby – Lokala sedvänjor och långväga kontakter. Förromerskt grav- och byggnadsskick ur ett halländskt perspektiv

Abstract

The main purpose of the thesis is to present, penetrate and analyse occurrences at two sites dated to Pre-Roman Iron Age. These events are regarded in the comparative light of their contemporary local, regional and interregional context. The sites comprise one burial site and a neighbouring settlement site at Tjärby in southern Halland. From a micro-archaeological point of view, both sites could be called structuring structures. They are two actants around which the daily life, social relations and acts of a group of users – actors – revolved for a period of a few generations. In the first half of the study (chapters 5, 6 and 7), both sites are discussed. The strikingly contemporaneous events at both sites are illuminated by applying a micro-archaeological method. Regarding the burial site at Tjärby Norra, focus is set on circumstances such as the long tradition of placing broken, partially sintered pots in graves; the demography of the area; changes over time of the internal and external burial customs (grave gifts and markers of the grave); the manner of how space in the landscape was utilised. In the case of the settlement site, Tjärby Södra, the centre of attention mainly concerns the chronological development of the longhouses, as well as spatial changes that occurred over time at the settlement. In the following chapters (8 and 9), the view is widened in a comparative study of contemporaneous south Scandinavian building styles and burial customs with special attention to Halland. The tradition of placing broken and sintered pots that was identified in many of the burials in southern Halland, in combination with types of pots unusual in this region and metal artefacts, along with the existence of two-aisled longhouses, gives rise to a discussion (chapter 10) concerning far-reaching marine networks around the southern Baltic. The author considers this a sign not only of long-distance contact; the south of Halland also seems to have been a third space, an area that was influenced by extensive cultural exchange over long distances. Through a hybridisation process the inhabitants appear to have adopted many new influences, but at the same time transforming them into their own traditions in a combination of domestic and imported ideas.