A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Gjutningens arenor

  2018. Anna Sörman (et al.).

  Thesis (Doc)

  Production and use of metalwork in southern Scandinavia during the Bronze Age (1700-500 BC) has above all been attributed to emerging elites. That bronze was a source and medium for social power is evident from its use in socio-political and ritual spheres, the multiple skills and elaborate aesthetics involved in its crafting, and the arenas for influence and control offered by the acquisition of metals through long-distance exchange. Bronze crafting is often assumed to have been organized at two levels: elite-controlled prestige goods production at centralised workshop sites, set against widespread (controlled or independent) production of utility objects in common households. However, this model is inferred from a functionalist view of finished goods (utility versus prestige) and inspired by anthropological theories, rather than from the material remains of production itself. With evidence of metalworking practices now rapidly increasing due to large-scale contract archaeology, it has become evident that these concepts and interpretations need to be reassessed.

  The aim of this thesis is to develop our understanding of craft organisation through investigation of physical casting sites. Mould and crucible fragments, and their spatial relation to contemporary buildings and other activities, form the main focus of the analysis. I argue that most ceramic casting debris indicates casting loci, and was deposited as secondary waste, or accumulated immediately at the production site. Special, ritual treatment of casting debris is absent, with the exception of complete moulds occasionally found as house offerings in Late Bronze Age longhouses. The Mälar Valley area of eastern Sweden, which has seen particularly intensive archaeological excavation in recent decades, is selected for an in-depth case study, followed by comparisons with other regions of southern Scandinavia. These data demonstrate that bronzes were cast at most, if not all, settlements during the mid-late Bronze Age. Metalworking also occurred at small single farms; a production argued to be dependent on visiting specialists.

  The results reveal complex, user-oriented and multi-tiered craft organisation from Period III onwards. A distinction between prestigious versus utility objects did not structure production. Instead, the organisation and staging of bronze working was shaped by various social roles of the items produced. Rather than special workshop areas, castings were spatially oriented towards future owners. Prestige objects were manufactured in both longhouses and cult-houses within larger settlement complexes, in settings related to the status and gender of their intended users. Further, metalworking often appeared in central and highly visible settings, suggesting it had the character of a performance. I therefore propose that casting –the most dramatic event in the bronze-crafting sequence – was exploited in public or semi-public rituals. Taking into account the social projects and motifs behind new objects, castings were probably linked to transformations such as initiations, inaugurations or establishment of new households. Thus, metalworking played an active and conspicuous role in social reproduction at various levels and in several arenas in the decentralised, heterarchical societies of Bronze Age southern Scandinavia.

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• A place for crafting? Late Bronze Age metalworking in southern Scandinavia and the issue of workshops

  2017. Anna Sörman. Artisans versus nobility? Multiple identities of elites and 'commoners' viewed though the lens of crafting from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean, 53-78

  Chapter

  ‘Workshops’ and ‘workshop production’ are central to archaeological understanding of metalworking in Bronze Age societies. In this article the concept of workshops is used as a starting point to review preconceptions about the social and spatial organisation of bronze crafting, focusing particularly on how it influences expectations of crafting evidence in the archaeological record. It argues that assumptions of a permanent, customised crafting place hosting the full manufacturing process, as often implied by the term ‘workshop’, are unsuitable for understanding the nature of bronze crafting in southern Scandinavia during the Late Bronze Age. Instead, drawing on evidence from south-eastern Sweden, the craft is characterised as flexible, embedded, and multi-locational. Furthermore, differences in crafting loci between ornaments and weapons are suggested to relate to the initiations of their intended bearers and to demonstrate the heterogeneous organisation of prestige goods production. Such user-oriented production provides an interesting example of the organisation of elite-motivated crafting outside the context of centralised states.

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• En gjutform av täljsten från den yngre bronsåldern

  2015. Per Nilsson, Anna Sörman. Fornvännen 110 (2), 84-96

  Article

  The excavation of a Late Bronze Age settlement at Rambodal, just outside the city of Norrköping, has provided interesting evidence for Bronze Age metalworking, including the third Bronze Age stone casting mould found to date in the county of Östergötland. The settlement consisted of a single farm with dates from Per. V of the Bronze Age to the earliest Iron Age. In addition to high-quality ceramics, the settlement yielded several traces of bronze casting, such as a copper melt and part of a soapstone mould for a small socketed axe, probably dating to Per.VI. Soapstone moulds are rarely found at settlement sites. The find provides interesting data for discussions of the molds’ use contexts. The evidence for small-scale household metalworking at a minor farmstead like Rambodal holds significant potential for future research on the spread and organisation of this craft.

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