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.     

Performance and Risks of Salt-Accumulating Renders in Relation to Their Moisture Transport Properties

Salt-accumulating renders are usually applied in several layers with different specific properties of moisture transport. An extensive experimental programme was carried out to establish a relationship between those properties of individual layers and the performance of combined systems on a salt-laden substrate. Each of the 20 renders was characterized separately in absorption and drying tests, vacuum saturation tests, dry cup tests, mercury intrusion porosimetry, and ultrasound wave velocity measurements. Each of the 12 combined render systems was applied on a brick, which was then saturated with a concentrated NaCl solution by free capillary uptake. Subsequently the assembly was closed at the bottom and subjected to an accelerated drying test (50° C and 15% relative humidity). Moisture and salt profiles over the depth were taken regularly during 1 month. The results reveal very different degrees of effectiveness and levels of risk for the substrate, which are related to the moisture transport properties.     

The effect of ethnicity and economy upon intergenerational coresidence: northern Norway during the last part of the nineteenth century

During the last part of the nineteenth century, Finnmark province and the northern part of Troms experienced a decline in intergenerational coresidence. This article discusses what impact ethnic affiliation and economic activity had on the living arrangements of the elderly, and what contributed to the change. Logistic regression shows that ethnicity played a role but its effect disappears after controlling for economic activity. Intergenerational coresidence was positively associated with being a married Sámi male with an occupation in farming or combined fishing and farming. As such a person grew older, he was increasingly likely to live separately from an own adult child. This pattern changed toward the end of nineteenth century. By the close of the century, ethnic differences had disappeared, and headship position, irrespective of marital status, was strongly related to coresidence.     

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.     

Optical spectroscopy as a rapid and low-cost tool for the first-line analysis of glass artefacts: a step-by-step plan for Roman green glass

Archaeometric research on glass artefacts is continuously evolving and is converging towards a multidisciplinary research domain where different types of techniques are applied depending on the questions asked and the circumstances involved. The technique described in this work is optical spectroscopy. The benefit of this technique being the possibility of building up a knowledge database for a large amount of material in a relatively short period of time and with a relatively limited budget. This is of particular interest for the investigation of extensive and/or unexplored glass collections where a first-line analysis of artefacts could facilitate the selection of material needing further and more detailed examination.     

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.     

Paper 2: Climatic Study of the Underground Archaeological Site Coudenberg

Abstract

The excavation and valorization of subterranean archaeological remains, and eventually opening a site to the public, required a proper management and conservation strategy. This strategy was based on the evaluation of the delicate balance between the requirements for public health and safety, and the protection of the archaeological remains from future degradation. Controlling the climate can be essential for a preventive conservation strategy, which can be defined as an indirect action to increase the life expectancy of the archaeological remains, and by doing so keeping them in a preferred state of conservation to mitigate damage and/or deterioration.

Potential risks and possible interventions are outlined to avoid climatic conditions which are in conflict with the requirements for the visitors’ comfort while preventing damage phenomena to the materials.