Lotte Hedeager – författare

Scandinavia is a multiethnic zone of cultural contact on Europe's northwestern margins. This fact, when considered in the context of the region’s very diverse environmental conditions, has established Scandinavia as an exceptional anthropological and historical laboratory for the study of general issues in human history. Indeed, Scandinavian archaeology was a pioneer in and remains a force in scientific archaeology. This is naturally a function of the region's rich prehistory and archaeological record, characterised by iconic sites and monuments, finds, and artefacts. The creation of a platform for exploring the past is linked to strong public support for the creation of exceptional museums, strong heritage legislation and management organisations, and dedicated academic institutions and training programmes. At an early stage, prehistoric archaeology instituted multidisciplinary practices, collaborating with the ecological and natural sciences, as well as anthropological and historical disciplines. The chapters that make up The Oxford Handbook of Scandinavian Archaeology to 1050 CE are written by a range of contemporary Scandinavian and international experts and explore the region's prehistory and archaeological practices. Authors have been selected not only for their expertise in the subject matter, but also to demonstrate the variability in theoretical and methodological approaches found in contemporary Scandinavian archaeology. The 83 chapters endeavour to present an up-to-date and comprehensive prehistory of the region from the Palaeolithic to the Viking Age, as well as discussion of the discipline's history and institutions, the region’s diverse environmental conditions, important elements of interdisciplinary collaboration, and significant themes of research. Focusing on Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the book also contains chapters from Finland and the eastern Baltic, Iceland and Anglo-Saxon Ireland, Scotland, and Ireland. The Handbook provides a detailed, holistic overview of this astonishingly diverse field, and its chapters will be required reading for anyone interested in the history and heritage of the Nordic countries.

Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the European Migrations up until the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and examines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later. With a time lag of 300 to 900 years from the archaeological evidence, the textual material has until recently been ruled out as a usable source for any study of the pagan past. However, Hedeager argues that this is true regarding any study of a society’s short-term history, but it should not be the crucial requirement for defining the sources relevant for studying long-term structures of the longue durée, or their potential contributions to a theoretical understanding of cultural changes and transformation. In Iron Age Scandinavia we are dealing with persistent and slow-changing structures of worldviews and ideologies over a wavelength of nearly a millennium. Furthermore, iconography can often date the arrival of new mythical themes anchoring written narratives in a much older archaeological context.Old Norse myths are explored with particular attention to one of the central mythical narratives of the Old Norse canon, the mythic cycle of Odin, king of the Norse pantheon. In addition, contemporaneous historical sources from late Antiquity and the early European Middle Age - the narratives of Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, and Paul the Deacon in particular - will be explored. No other study provides such a broad ranging and authoritative study of the relationship of myth to the archaeology of Scandinavia.

Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the European Migrations up until the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and examines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later. With a time lag of 300 to 900 years from the archaeological evidence, the textual material has until recently been ruled out as a usable source for any study of the pagan past. However, Hedeager argues that this is true regarding any study of a society’s short-term history, but it should not be the crucial requirement for defining the sources relevant for studying long-term structures of the longue durée, or their potential contributions to a theoretical understanding of cultural changes and transformation. In Iron Age Scandinavia we are dealing with persistent and slow-changing structures of worldviews and ideologies over a wavelength of nearly a millennium. Furthermore, iconography can often date the arrival of new mythical themes anchoring written narratives in a much older archaeological context.Old Norse myths are explored with particular attention to one of the central mythical narratives of the Old Norse canon, the mythic cycle of Odin, king of the Norse pantheon. In addition, contemporaneous historical sources from late Antiquity and the early European Middle Age - the narratives of Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, and Paul the Deacon in particular - will be explored. No other study provides such a broad ranging and authoritative study of the relationship of myth to the archaeology of Scandinavia.