Gotska Sandön ligger ensligt mitt ute i Östersjön och framställs ofta som en avlägsen och orörd plats. Dess äldre historia har antagits handla om fiske och säsongsjakt på säl. Men de nya arkeologiska undersökningar som redovisas i denna rapport visar på en betydligt mer komplex historia. Ön har under flera årtusenden genom sitt strategiska läge varit en korsväg mellan olika kulturområden i hela Östersjöområdet. De fynd av keramik, mynt och vapen som hittats längs öns sandiga stränder utgör spår av dessa såväl fredliga som krigiska maritima möten.

In this study, we investigate the interplay between relative sea-level changes, the development of human settlements and land-cover changes in the Vastervik-Gamlebyviken region on the southeast coast of Sweden, an important archaeological area from the Mesolithic until recent times. The reconstruction of shore displacement was based on diatom analysis of radiocarbon-dated sediment cores from three lake basins combined with previously published lake isolation data. The resulting curve was used to construct palaeogeographical maps for selected time windows. Land-cover changes were inferred from pollen data from three lakes using the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm with its two models REVEALS and LOVE. Our data suggest that people took advantage of the land gained due to an overall fall in relative sea level from similar to 35 to similar to 3 metres above sea level (m a.s.l.) over the last 10 000 years, interrupted by periods of transgression and highstands. A sea-level regression of similar to 16 m occurred between 10 000 and 8500 cal a BP followed by an similar to 3-4-m sea-level rise, reaching similar to 22 m a.s.l. at similar to 7500 cal a BP, which corresponds to the maximum Littorina Sea shoreline in the area. The available archaeological findings for the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic (8950-5450 cal a BP) agree well with the shore displacement curve showing that settlements and human activities were concentrated along or above the shorelines as defined from our study. During the transgression after 8500 cal a BP, however, seasonal settlements were submerged (as shown by findings of polished stone tools and hearths buried in sand) and used again during the subsequent regression after 4600 cal a BP. The Iron Age (2450-900 cal a BP) corresponds partly to a highstand at similar to 11 m a.s.l. between 3600 and 2000 cal a BP and partly to a rapid regression of similar to 8 m between 2000 and 1500 cal a BP, and both periods coincide with known human activities along the contemporaneous shoreline. The rapid regression after 2000 cal a BP corresponds to an increase of both regional and local landscape openness and the beginning of a continuous record of crop cultivation.

The title of the article alludes to the contemporary American debate about the significance of firearms for killing and violence; is it guns or people that’s kill? But the aim here is to take this further and ask, more generally, what role do material things have for conflicts, power relations and societal change? This question theoretically concerns various forms of materialism and concepts such as dialectic, entanglement, affordances and possibilism.  

In this text, technology and material culture’s role in social formation and historical change is contextualized and discussed based on the building and presence of new heavily armed warships during the 15th and 16th centuries. How do these material innovations relate to the transformation of the society? What role did the big new ships have in the change from Medieval to Modern? The archeological and historical examples are taken from the Baltic Sea region and the Scandinavian countries.

Reconstructions of past land use and related land-cover changes at local and regional scales are needed to evaluate the potential long-term impacts of land use on the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea. In this purpose, we selected the Gamleby area at the Swedish Baltic Sea coast for a case study. We use a new, high resolution pollen record from a small lake (Lillsjön) located 3.6 km NNW of the bay Gamlebyviken and detailed analysis of the available archeological data to reconstruct local land-use changes over the last 3000 years. To estimate land-cover change at local (2–3 km radius area) and regional (50 km radius area) scales we use four additional, published pollen records from two small and two large lakes (25–70 km S of Lillsjön) and the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm, a pollen-vegetation modeling scheme. Results show that regional and local (small lakes Lillsjön and Hyttegöl) land-cover changes are comparable over the last 1500 years (Late Iron Age to present), and that landscape openness was much larger locally than regionally (difference of 20–40% cover over the last 500 years). The periods of largest potential impacts on the Gamlebyviken Bay from regional and local land use are 200–950 CE (Late Iron Age) and 1450 CE to present, and of lowest potential impacts 950–1450 CE. The question on whether the large landscape openness 1150–50 BCE and significant afforestation 50 BCE–200 CE reconstructed for Lillsjön’s area are characteristic of the Gamlebyviken region will require additional pollen records in the catchment area. 

I Blekinge skärgård vid Stora Ekön ligger på knappt tio meters djup vraket efter den danske unionskungen Hans skepp. Fartyget som av sin samtid kallades Gripen och även vid några tillfällen Griphund förliste år 1495 efter en brand ombord när hon låg för ankar. 

Södertörns högskola har bedrivit marinarkeologiska undersökningar på platsen sedan 2013 och denna rapport redogör för fortsatt dokumentation av vraket under 2023 tillsammans med Stockholms universitet. Huvudsyftet med insatsen var att studera överbyggnaden på skeppet för att förstå hur fartyget fungerade i strid med speciellt fokus på knektarnas roll ombord och deras samspel med den befintliga vapenteknologin.

Rapporten innehåller även en omfattande analys av tidigare bärgade delar från ringvävnadsplagg samt synpunkter på vrakets bevarandestatus. Gripen/Griphund utgör som skeppskonstruktion samt med vapnen och föremålen ombord ett unikt exempel på ett kungligt skepp från slutet av medeltiden. Det är en representant för de nya kravellbyggda skepp som tillsammans med sina furstar var med och bidrog till den tidigmoderna samhällsförändringen.