The Aldersro wetland-settlement complex
Deposition and mortuary practices in Pre-Roman Iron Age, Eastern Jutland, Denmark
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/dja.v10i0.125120Keywords:
Eastern Jutland Denmark, Pre-Roman Iron Age, wetland depositions, domestic practices, human remains, fragmentationAbstract
In southern Scandinavia, the Early Iron Age transition is characterised by radical ideological and organisational changes involving new material practices of sorting, delimiting, depositing and discarding artefacts, humans and nonhumans, in both wetlands and drylands. However, settlements and wetland areas are mostly excavated separately, and the deeper relationship between these practices and associated spheres remains somewhat inconclusive. Aldersro, Eastern Jutland, provides an exceptional opportunity to revisit this relationship. A juxtaposed settlement and wetland activity area spanning more than 1.4 hectares were excavated in 2002-2003. The excavations exposed the structural remains of houses, fences, storage buildings, pits and peat graves. Moreover, they disclosed extensive archaeological remains of more than 800 ceramic vessels, processed wood, stones, burnt organic material, human and animal bones subject to 14C, pollen, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, osteology, and ceramic analyses. The site has provided vital new insights into the diachronic dynamics of depositional and mortuary practices in the Early Iron Age. The highly fragmented remains of more than eight human individuals were mixed and deposited together with typical settlement debris, and would have been exposed right next to a settlement area.
References
Aaby, B. 2005. Geobotaniske undersøgelser af dødishuller ved Aldersro, nord for Århus (Unpublished Scientific Report). National Museum of Denmark, Department of Environmental Archaeology and Material Science, 1-34.
Christensen, P.M. and Nissen, P., 2003. FHM 4097 Aldersro (Unpublished Excavation Report). Moesgaard Museum.
Gotfredsen, A.B. 2004a. Knoglematerialet fra Aldersro I, FHM 4096 (Unpublished Scientific Report). Natural History Museum of Denmark, Zoological Museum.
Gotfredsen, A.B. 2004b. Knoglematerialet fra Aldersro II, FHM 4097 (Unpublished Scientific Report). Natural History Museum of Denmark, Zoological Museum.
Hatting, T. 1993. Oksefund fra Bukkerup og Turup, Fynske minder, 1993, 93-98.
Iversen, R.B. 2018. FHM 5913 Nye (Unpublished Excavation Report). Moesgaard Museum.
Jensen, J. 1997. Fra Bronze- til Jernalder – en kronologisk undersøgelse. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldtidsselskab.
Jensen, P.M. 2003. Sen førromersk jernalder ved Aldersro II (FHM 4097) (Unpublished Scientific Report). Moesgaard Museum, Department of Conservation and Environmental Science.
Jensen, P.M. 2004a. Arkæobotanisk analyse af jordprøve fra bund af vidjefletkurv FHM4097 (Unpublished Scientific Report). Moesgaard Museum, Department of Conservation and Environmental Science.
Jensen, P.M. 2004b. Arkæobotanisk undersøgelse af jordprøver udtaget ved moselig fra overgangen til førromersk jernalder ved Aldersro II (FHM 4097) (Unpublished Scientific Report). Moesgaard Museum, Department of Conservation and Environmental Science.
Kaul, F. 1994. Trivselstegnet. SKALK, 1994 (3), 11-15.
Kveiborg, J. 2008. Fårehyrder, kvægbønder eller svineavler: en vurdering af jernalderens dyrehold. KUML 2008, 59-100.
Kveiborg, J. 2019. Dyreknogler. In: M. Løvschal, R.B. Iversen and M.K. Holst, eds. De dræbte krigere i Alken Enge. Efterkrigsritualer i ældre jernalder. Højbjerg: Jutland Archaeological Society, 105-122.
Løvschal, M. and Holst M.K. 2018. Governing martial traditions: Post-conflict ritual sites in Iron Age Northern Europe (200 BC-AD 200). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 50, 27-39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2018.01.003
Mandrup, P., Lundby, P. and Laursen, K. 2015. FHM 5478 Lauritshøj II (Unpublished Excavation Report). Moesgaard Museum.
Mollerup, L. 2003a. Undersøgelse af humane knogler fra FHM 4096, Aldersro I Lystrup (Unpublished Scientific Report). Moesgaard Museum, Department of Conservation and Environmental Science.
Mollerup, L. 2003b. FHM 4097, Aldersro 2, Lystrup. Antropologisk undersøgelse af skelet X. 3604 (Unpublished Scientific Report). Moesgaard Museum, Department of Conservation and Environmental Science.
Mollerup, L. 2004. FHM 4096, Aldersro I og FHM 4097, Aldersro II, Lystrup, Antropologisk gennemgang af løsfundne humane knogler (Unpublished Scientific Report). Moesgaard Museum, Department of Conservation and Environmental Science.
Mortensen, M.F., Christensen, C., Johannesen, K., Fiedel, R. and Olsen, J. 2020. Iron Age peat cutting and ritual depositions in bogs – new evidence from Fuglsøgaard Mose, Denmark. Danish Journal of Archaeology 9, 1-30. https://doi.org/10.7146/dja.v9i0.116377
Rasmussen, U. and Lundby, P.W. 2003. FHM 4096 Aldersro I (Unpublished Excavation Report). Moesgaard Museum.
Skousen, H. 2008. Arkæologi i lange baner. Højbjerg: Moesgaard.
van der Plicht, J. 2004. Radiocarbon, the calibration Curve and Scythian Chronology. In: E. Marian Scott, A.Y. Alekseev and G. Zaitseva, eds. Impact of the Environment on Human Migration in Eurasia. Dordrecht: Springer, 45-61. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2656-0_5
Webley, L. 2008. Iron Age Households. Structure and Practice in Western Denmark, 500 BC-AD 200. Højbjerg: Jutland Archaeological Society.
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Versions
- 2022-01-11 (2)
- 2021-10-04 (1)
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Danish Journal of Archaeology
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Counting from volume 11 (2022), articles published in DJA are licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The editorial board may accept other Creative Commons licenses for individual articles, if required by funding bodies e.g. the European Research Council. With the publication of volume 11, authors retain copyright to their articles and give DJA the right to the first publication. The authors retain copyright to earlier versions of the articles, such as the submitted and the accepted manuscript.
Articles in volume 1-8 are not licensed under Creative Commons. In these volumes, all rights are reserved to DJA. This implies that readers can download, read, and link to the articles, but they cannot republish the articles. Authors can upload their articles in an institutional repository as a part of a green open access policy.
Articles in volume 9-10 are not licensed under Creative Commons. In these volumes, all rights are reserved to the authors of the articles respectively. This implies that readers can download, read, and link to the articles, but they cannot republish the articles. Authors can upload their articles in an institutional repository.
