Changing histories and ethnicities in a Sámi and Norse borderland

Hedmark County is a large inland district in southeast Norway that represents the southern part of the Sámi settlement area, and a Sámi–Norse borderland. Centred on the municipalities Rendalen and Engerdal, the study investigates the long-term cultural and social processes involved in the construction and maintenance of a borderland using theories of ethnicity and cultural tradition. Over time, different groups of people have used the diverse landscapes, and two periods are highlighted: the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age (2350–500 BC), and the Iron Age and the Middle Ages (500 BC–AD 1500). The focus is on how different groups of people used the landscapes as seen through variation in settlement, subsistence, borders and contact networks with neighbouring and distant regions.     

Interpreting the expansion of sea fishing in medieval Europe using stable isotope analysis of archaeological cod bones

Archaeological fish bones reveal increases in marine fish utilisation in Northern and Western Europe beginning in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. We use stable isotope signatures from 300 archaeological cod (Gadus morhua) bones to determine whether this sea fishing revolution resulted from increased local fishing or the introduction of preserved fish transported from distant waters such as Arctic Norway, Iceland and/or the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland). Results from 12 settlements in England and Flanders (Belgium) indicate that catches were initially local. Between the 9th and 12th centuries most bones represented fish from the southern North Sea. Conversely, by the 13th to 14th centuries demand was increasingly met through long distance transport – signalling the onset of the globalisation of commercial fisheries and suggesting that cities such as London quickly outgrew the capacity of local fish supplies.     

Notes to the Brutus of Cicero

Scholars have taken for granted that Pausanias is indebted to Thucydides both in style and as a source for his historical excurses. This paper argues that this view lacks foundation. The importance of the lost literature that we know Pausanias used makes it impossible to define the influences that formed his style, and in subject matter his divergences from Thucydides rather point to non‐Thucydidean sources.     

Empowering marginal lifescapes: the heritage of crofters in between the past and the present

There is a rich, but unacknowledged, heritage of rural subalterns, crofters, in Scandinavia. A Swedish-Norwegian interdisciplinary research-network investigated the most prominent category – the remains of crofts. Due to industrialisation, urbanisation and the modern welfare state, the institution of crofting was abolished, and many crofters left for opportunities elsewhere. The welfare state transformed a landscape of living and working people into a one filled with relicts mostly from the nineteenth century. Although numerous and important to local citizens, these sites fall outside the authorised heritage discourse (AHD) in terms of both research and heritage management. This paper takes an environmental justice perspective to challenge the AHD. Three themes are in focus: (1) bringing out the history of a subaltern and marginalised group of people; (2) promoting crofts as heritage of importance to local citizens and demanding complex management due to the various historical narratives and risks; (3) considering the crofting landscapes in relation to the (economisation) framing of heritage in development processes, especially in relation to fair development in present rural communities.     

Detecting the medieval cod trade: a new method and first results

This paper explores the potential of stable isotope analysis to identify the approximate region of catch of cod by analysing bones from medieval settlements in northern and western Europe. It measures the δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values of cod bone collagen from medieval control samples collected from sites around Arctic Norway, the North Sea, the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea. These data were considered likely to differ by region due to, for example, variation in the length of the food chain, water temperature and salinity. We find that geographical structuring is indeed evident, making it possible to identify bones from cod caught in distant waters. These results provide a new methodology for studying the growth of long-range trade in dried cod and the related expansion of fishing effort—important aspects of the development of commercialisation in medieval Europe. As a first test of the method, we analyse three collections of cod bones tentatively interpreted as imported dried fish based on a priori zooarchaeological criteria. The results tentatively suggest that cod were being transported or traded over very long distances since the end of the first millennium AD.     

Catulliana

Today's consensus on the text of Ecl. 6. 33-34 may arguably be contested as line 34 will fit the context better when omnis (gen. extracted from P) is read instead of omnia. As to G. 1. 36, the author believes that the consensus on sperant (indicative) is misplaced and that the neglected reading¹1. Among my own latest examples I would mention here: auris (instead of auras) at A. 6. 561), omnes (instead of omnis acc. pl.) at 2. 598, ne (instead of ni) at 3. 686, caelo (instead of caeli) at 5. 851, reliquit instead of relinquit at 746, exiliis (instead of exitiis) at 7. 129, relinquit (instead of reliquit) at 12. 470. See Kraggerud (2011 Kraggerud, E. Marginalia to a New Aeneis recensaSymbolae Osloenses201185210225 doi: 10.1080/00397679.2011.631360[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). sperent, taken as a potential subjunctive and parallel to veniat (37), ought to be preferred. At A. 1. 458 Seneca's Atriden should replace the plural Atridas transmitted by the codices.     

Christian papyri from the Oslo collection

In Bellum Civile V Caesar forces the poor fisherman Amyclas to take him across the Adriatic on a stormy night. Caesar is contrasted with Amyclas as being indocilis privata loqui. The present paper shows that Caesar is indocilis privata loqui both in this episode and in the entire epic because he consistently uses the linguistic register of the military, imperatives and violent vocabulary.