Molecular and isotopic traces of cooking and consumption of fish at an Early Medieval manor site in eastern middle Sweden

This paper is a presentation of a comparison between prehistoric food culture signals obtained through analyses of lipid food residues in pottery, i.e. pottery-use, from settlement remains on one hand and bone chemical analyses of human skeletal remains from an adjacent and contemporary cemetery on the other. The materials derive from the Early Medieval site Tuna in Alsike par., Uppland, Sweden. The results show a discrepancy between the two food signals and it is argued that pottery-use do not by necessity reflect everyday diet. But it is also argued that the integration of several food signals together with contextual archaeological data is a fruitful way to begin to understand the complexity of prehistoric cultures of food.     

The changing identity of the Central European city: the case of Katowice

The issue of diverse identities imprinted on the urban landscape as the result of political changes and the struggle for power between different social and ethnic groups is analysed here using the example of Katowice, the capital and largest urban centre in Upper Silesia, Poland. Basing their conclusions on systematic investigation of the most important changes and features in the cityscape in five clearly distinct historical periods, the authors explore the conditions and mechanisms of the creation of the city’s symbolic landscape and its links with urban identity. They argue that Katowice represents a peculiar model of urban identity formation in Central and Eastern Europe that has to date not been researched in any depth, in which each successive historical period represents a rupture with the foregoing values and ideas and an attempt to make a new, lasting imprint on the material outlook of the city. The development of such a model of identity is the result of the complex interplay between the city’s changing geopolitical context and its economic and functional development path.     

Pillar Tombs and the City: Creating a Sense of Shared Identity in Swahili Urban Space

This paper reviews published research on Swahili pillar tombs, as a specific type of tombs built of stone, by summarising records on almost fifty sites on the east coast of Africa. Dated to the 13th–16th centuries AD, the pillar tombs represented a core component of Swahili urban space. By considering their spatial setting, characteristics and comparative case studies from Africa and the Indian Ocean world, the paper reconsiders how pillar tombs might have functioned as a type of material infrastructure for creating social ties and notions of shared identity in a society that has never formally united.     

Combined pollen and macrofossil data as a source for reconstructing mosaic patterns of the early medieval urban habitats – a case study from Gdańsk,N. Poland

Plant macrofossils, pollen, fungal spores and other non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs), were analyzed in three archaeological exposures established in a small area in the oldest part of the historic city of Gdańsk. One of the aims was to investigate how precisely the combined pollen and macrofossil data may reflect the diversity of local habitats within an urban archaeological site and to compare the range of information obtained using each of the methods separately. The other aim of the study was to reconstruct the environmental conditions in the earliest occupied area of the historic centre of Gdańsk. The repeatable composition and, in many points, consistency among pollen and macrofossil data in all three profiles strongly suggest that the apparently biased structure of these fossil remains in fact reflects a mosaic pattern of the vegetation in the area of the site. The combined pollen and macrofossil data enabled separation of local elements from those transported to the site by different means. The results show that already at the beginning of the 12th c., the area was almost totally deforested, but up to the mid-13th c. the settlement organization was still relatively loose, resembling a rather rural structure with well-developed ruderal plant communities and patches of semi-natural vegetation. At the coring area, strongly eutrophic riparian vegetation was bordering patches of dry grassland on a sandy holm. The large proportion of pollen of various entomophilous plants mostly from meadows and pastures is explained as a result of the presence of dung, as confirmed by the abundances of coprophilous fungal spores. The study indicates that parallel pollen and macrofossil analysis is essential for correct interpretation of fossil assemblages. Application of both methods enables broadening of the range of remains representing various organisms and obtaining more precise tools for environmental reconstruction and better understanding of the taphonomic processes at the archaeological site.