Central place research

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The central square research or archeology is involved in the analysis of Iron Age halls in Scandinavia . The aim is to identify networks of Iron Age mansions and centers of wealth that are based on trade. The centers, which can be perceived in particular from the halls, can be archaeologically proven in individual cases as early as the late Bronze Age (600 BC) and some of them persisted into the Vendel and Viking ages .

Almost simultaneous discoveries in the halls in Gudme, Denmark, and in Norway, activated Danish and Scandinavian research at the end of the 1980s. There were z. B. Halls excavated in Helgö , Slöinge and Uppåkra in Sweden, Borre and Forsand in Norway and at Tissø in Denmark. This led to the investigation of verifiable “princely seats” (e.g. Alt-Uppsala ) in the hope of being able to occupy halls there too. While in Denmark a total of 40 indoor or central places were known in 2003, ten years earlier there were only 12.

The basis of the debate about Northern European halls are the work of the Norwegian archaeologist Harald Egenæs Lund (1910–1972) and, more recently, the Swedish archaeologist Frands Herschend, who found that halls were only used as meeting rooms. Herschend's definition is:

  1. The hall consists of one room with a minimum of posts.
  2. It is part of a courtyard complex.
  3. It has a special location within the courtyard complex.
  4. The fire pits in the hall were not used for everyday things (cooking, handicrafts).
  5. The finds in the hall have a different character than those outside the hall or in other courtyard buildings.

At the beginning of the 8th century, trading and marketplaces were created almost simultaneously south of the Baltic Sea in the immediate vicinity of the coast, which structurally and in terms of found material have Danish / Scandinavian influences, but no halls. Groß Strömkendorf / Reric , Haithabu , Menzlin , Ralswiek and Rostock-Dierkow formed the south-western part of the supply system in the Baltic Sea region for about 100 years. A list of central place indicators can be found at Charlotte Fabech and Bertil Helgeson.

Place-name researchers have shown that references to halls may be passed down in court names, such as Uppsala (= Sala). Overarching interpretations are made in the context of literary historical analyzes, with Beowulf's heroic poetry being mentioned in particular .

The hall research has so far been carried out primarily from the archaeological side. Analyzes show that many halls burned down (e.g. the Uppåkra hall discovered in 2009). This indicates that the hall was not abandoned or relocated like a courtyard, but only lost its importance with the destruction. In Högom , a burial mound was built over the burned down hall. At the same time, halls in other written sources ( Nibelungenlied ) are noticeably often lit.

Without evidence of halls, structures were discovered in Sievern in the municipality of Geestland in the district of Cuxhaven in Lower Saxony and in Füsing an der Schlei in Schleswig-Holstein that roughly correspond to the Danish / Scandinavian centers.

literature

  • Stefan Brink: Political and social structures in early Scandinavia. A settlement-historical pre-study of the central place. In: Gate. 28, 1996, pp. 235-281.
  • Charlotte Fabech: Slöinge i perspective. In: Johan Callmer, Erik Rosengren (eds.): "... Gick Grendel att söka det Höga huset ..." Arkeologiska källor til aristokratiska miljöer i Scandinavia under yngre järnålder. (Falkenberg seminar 1995). Halmstad 1997, pp. 145-160.
  • Bertil Helgeson: Vad är centralt? - phenomena and function: localization and person. In: Lars Larsson (ed.): Centrala platser, centrala frågor: samhällsstruktur under järnåldern. En vänbok till Berta Stjernquist. (= Uppåkrastudier. 1). Stockholm 1998, pp. 39-45.
  • Frands Herschend: The Origin of the Hall in Southern Scandinavia. In: Gate. H. 25, 1993, pp. 175-199.
  • Frands Herschend (Ed.): Livet i hallen. Tre case study in the yngre järnålderns aristokrati . (= Occasional Papers in Archeology. 14). Uppsala 1997.
  • Catherine M. Hills: Beowulf and Archeology. In: Robert E. Bjork, John D. Niles (Eds.): A Beowulf Handbook. Lincoln 1997, pp. 291-310.
  • Harald Egenæs Lund: Håløygske høvdingeseter and do-anlegg fra eldre and yngre jernalder: Resyme of hovedresultaterne 1949-1958 . In: Stavanger Museums Årbok 1955 pp. 101–107
  • Gerd Stamsø Munch, Olav Sverre Johansen, Else Roesdahl (eds.): Borg in Lofoten. A chieftain's farm in North Norway. (= Arkeologisk script series. 1). Trondheim 2003, ISBN 82-519-1825-1 .
  • Alexandra Pesch: The golden bracteates of the Migration Period, evaluation and new finds. (= Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 36). De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, Chapter: Network of Central Places. Elite contacts and cooperation between early medieval wealth centers as reflected in the golden bracteates. Pp. 231-278.
  • Håkon Reiersen: The Central Place of Avaldsnes Area, SW Norway - An Analysis of Elites and Central Functions along Karmsund 200 BC-AD 1000. Master thesis . University of Bergen, 2009.
  • MD Schön: Grave finds from the Roman Empire and the Migration Period near Sievern, Ldkr. Cuxhaven. In: Problems of coastal research in the southern North Sea area. 27, 2001, pp. 75-248.
  • Heiko Steuer : Central locations. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 35, Berlin / New York 2007, pp. 878-914.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ who speaks of chiefs' seats ( Norwegian høvdingeseter )

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