Arne Skjølsvold

Arne Skjølsvold (born June 5, 1925 in Rugldalen, Røros , Sør-Trøndelag , Norway ; † October 26, 2007 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian archaeologist and friend of Thor Heyerdahl , whom he accompanied on several expeditions. In addition to his profound and globally recognized knowledge of Polynesia, his area of ​​expertise was the period from the Neolithic to the Iron Age of Scandinavia. Most recently he was research director at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.

Life

Arne was born to the railway worker Olav (1901–1997) and his wife Louise (1900–1997) Skjølsvold in Rugldalen, a train station on the Røros Railway.

He graduated with a master's degree in Scandinavian archeology in 1954, but only received his doctorate in 1979.

From 1955 and until 1958 he was the first director of the Norsk Skogmuseum (“Norwegian Forest Museum”; national museum and open-air museum for nature, forestry, hunting and inland fishing) in Elverum , founded in 1954 , then chief curator of the archaeological department of the Stavanger Museum until 1962 , from 1980 there also managing director. From 1981 he was a professor and employed at the History Museum of the University of Oslo (Universitetets Oldsaksamling) until he moved to the Kon-Tiki Museum in 1986, where he headed its research department from 1988 to 1996.

In Scandinavian archeology, Arne Skjølsvold mainly worked on three areas:

• Woodwork and embroidery
• The Relationship Between Hunters and Farmers in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages
• Iron Age barrows

Even his master's thesis was devoted to the mining and processing of soapstone by the Vikings. A few years later he discovered and examined the ancient soapstone quarry Kvikneskogen (municipality of Tynset ) at about 1,000 meters above sea level. His research in this regard expanded international knowledge of the manufacture of high-quality products in the pre-Roman Iron Age.

Research that he carried out during his time in Stavanger in the Slettabø settlement near Egersund , among other places , was the topic of his dissertation, Slettabøbop Lassen (Slettabø settlement). During this time he was not only interested in prehistoric mining, but also discovered and researched early graves, sometimes far removed from contemporary village settlements.

As a friend of Thor Heyerdahl, whom he met for the first time in 1952, he accompanied him on several expeditions in which he was always the archaeological director: 1952–1953 to the Galapagos Islands , 1955–56 to Easter Island and the Marquesas , 1983 and 1984 to the Maldives , and from 1988-1994 he led the excavations in Túcume , Peru.

On Easter Island, Skjølsvold was particularly involved in investigating the quarries at Rano Raraku , where the moai were carved out of the rock. The ethno-archaeological experiment to transport the statues was under his supervision. After finishing the work on Easter Island, the expedition visited Raivavae and Hiva Oa . 1963–1964 Skjølsvold returned to the Marquesas as part of a Norwegian expedition and explored a. a. a cave there, and in the 1980s he visited Easter Island several times to conduct field research.

Arne Skjølsvold was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences (since 1981) and the Royal Norwegian Scientific Society ( Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab ).

He was married to Brita Jenssen (born May 19, 1938).

Publications (selection)

• Klebersteinindustrien i vikingetiden, 1961 (soapstone industry in the Viking Age; diploma thesis, 1954)
• The Stone Statues and Quarries of Rano Raraku, ( The Stone Statues and Quarries of Rano Raraku ) in: T. Heyerdahl and EN Ferdon jr. (Ed.): Archeology of Easter Island, Vol. 1, 1961. S.?.
• with E. Johansen: Reisefører til fortiden. Med arkeologen rounds Oslofjorden (travel guide to the past. With archaeologists around the Oslofjord), 1966.
• Et keltertids klebersteinsbrudd fra Kvikne, (A soapstone quarry of the Celtic times in Kvikne), in: Viking 1969, pp. 201-238.
• Slettabøbop Lassen. Et bidrag til discusjonen om forholdet mellom fangst- og bondesamfunnet i yngre steinalder og bronsealder (Slettabø settlement. A contribution to the discussion on the relationship between hunting and farming communities in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, Stavanger 1977).
• Refleksjoner omkring jernaldergravene i sydnorske fjellstrøk, (considerations on Iron Age graves in the mountain regions of southern Norway), in: Viking 1979, pp. 140-160.
• Archaeological Test-Excavations in the Maldive Islands, 1991.
• The Dating of Rapanui Monolithic Sculpture, in: SR Fisher (Ed.): Easter Island Studies. Contributions to the History of Rapanui in Memory of William Mulloy, Oxford 1993, p.

literature

• P. Wallin, H. Martinsson-Wallin (Eds.): Essays in honor of Arne Skjølsvold 75 years, 2000.

Web links

• Norsk biografisk leksikon, Norwegian.
• DNVA, commemorative speech, 2008, Norwegian.