We live in a time characterized by climate change, conflicts and crises, but this is nothing new. In a research programme financed by Riksbankens jubileumsfond, archaeologists will study how societies were affected by such major upheavals on Öland 300–700 CE. They will study the people and societies that used some of Öland's most prominent ancient remains, the ringforts. What was the economy enabling the building of forts and stone-wall-houses? Why were the forts and the stone-wall-houses abandoned? And why were some of the forts re-utilized? Was it local people who eventually re-utilized them? What economic and social conditions enabled re-utilization of the forts? Were conflicts or other types of crises the reason for abandonment? Were any conflicts internal or external?
 

Ismantorps borg, Öland. Photo: Jan Norrman / Riksantikvarieämbetet.

The focus is on how societies, in a time of major climatic events and pandemics, have dealt with conflicts and crises and how this in turn might have changed their social cohesion expressed in economy, material culture and religious beliefs. The programme will show if crises – caused by pandemics, war, natural disasters or climate change – are driving or retarding forces of societal development. This will then be related to surrounding communities around the Baltic Sea.

With leading expertise, profiting from the most up-to-date knowledge of the field and employing state-of-the-art methods, a unique opportunity is given to study processes leading to societal crises and societal responses to these crises, caused by a number of external factors, such as climate change, contagious disease, and warfare – conditions not very different from the situation that many countries in the world face today in times of a warming climate, covid-19 and worldwide conflicts.

The programme is led by Professor Kerstin Lidén at the Archaeological Research Laboratory and has participants from Stockholm University, Linnaeus University and Kalmar County Museum.

Read more:
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

Contact:
Kerstin Lidén, Kerstin.liden@arklab.su.se.