OCCASIONAL PAPERS IN ARCHAEOLOGY 73 Outlanders? Resource colonisation, raw material exploitation and Networks in Middle Iron Age Sweden Andreas Hennius Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Humanistiska teatern, Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3c, Uppsala, Saturday, 8 May 2021 at 13:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Dr James Barrett (Cambridge University). Abstract Hennius, A. 2021. Outlanders? Resource colonisation, raw material exploitation and networks in Middle Iron Age Sweden. Occasional papers in archaeology 73. 149 pp. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History. ISBN 978-91-506-2868-5. The Middle Iron Age, around 300–650 CE, was characterised by extensive transformations across many aspects of society in the area of present-day Sweden. Within the central agricultural regions of the southern parts of the country, these changes are evident in a re-organisation of the settlements, renewed burial practices, the building of large-scale monuments, as well as increased militarisation, social stratification and an increase in imported objects. This thesis addresses an additional aspect of Middle Iron Age societal change, namely an increase in the utilisation of raw materials and resources from forested and coastal landscapes situated beyond the settled farm. These non-agrarian landscapes are commonly referred to as the outlands. In previous research, the increased utilisation of the outlands has in general been understood as part of a Viking Age expansion. The case studies of the thesis suggest that the outlands saw an intensified resource colonisation already during the Middle Iron Age, and that a similar explanatory model can be used to accommodate the parallel developments that appear in the agrarian landscapes as well as the in the outlands. The resource colonisation contributed to a surplus production that seems to have exceeded the needs of ordinary households, along with serially produced items, distributed along far-reaching trade networks in exchange of exotic commodities. The thesis argues that these networks should be interpreted as part of systems connecting distant regions, ranging from the Far East to Arctic Scandinavia. The discussions of the cases studies illustrate interplay between different groups of people – producers and consumers, hunters and farmers – in different parts of the landscape, and how they generated complex, social and economic relations and interdependencies. This in turn resulted in specific cultural patterns in the border area between the boreal forest in the north and the agrarian region in the south. The main contribution of the study is that it highlights how the main elements of outland exploitation, such as mass production and trade in valuable non-agrarian resources, can be dated earlier than has been previously thought. Moreover, the thesis argues that outland resource colonisation was an important driving force for the societal developments that took place during the Middle Iron Age, and is crucial for our understanding of later time periods. Keywords: outlands, non-agrarian production, resource exploitation, Scandinavia, Iron Age archaeology, pre-viking age, Vendel period, Viking Age, tar production, pitfall hunting, whaling, seasonal production sites Andreas Hennius, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Archaeology, Box 626, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Andreas Hennius 2021 ISSN 1100-6358 ISBN 978-91-506-2868-5 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-437158 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-437158) ”Det som för länge sedan var förött och nedkämpat i skoglösa länder blev hos oss vägen till kultur och civilisation. Skogens paradox blev vår kulturs kärna. Det kaotiska som gav utanförskap erkändes också som nyttighet och skydd. Vi har ett djupt behov av skogen.” Kerstin Ekman, Herrarna i skogen List of Papers This thesis is based on the following papers, which are referred to in the text by their Roman numerals. The papers are included in appendices I–IV. I Hennius, A. 2020a. Towards a Refined Chronology of Prehis- toric Pitfall Hunting in Sweden. European Journal of Archaeol- ogy. doi:10.1017/eaa.2020.8 Pp. 1–17 II Hennius, A., Gustavsson, R., Ljungkvist, J. & Spindler, L. 2018. Whalebone Gaming Pieces: Aspects of Marine Mammal Exploitation in Vendel and Viking Age Scandinavia. European Journal of Archaeology, 21. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2018.15 Pp. 612–631. III Hennius, A. 2018. Viking Age Tar Production and Outland Ex- ploitation. Antiquity, 92. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.22 Pp. 1349–1361. IV Hennius, A. 2020b. Outland exploitation and the emergence of seasonal settlements. Bebyggelsehistorisk tidskrift, 79 Stock- holm. Pp. 8–24. Reprints were made with permission from the respective publishers. Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................... 15 Prerequisites of the thesis ................................................................................ 16 Thesis outline ................................................................................................... 23 Middle Iron Age society — a general view of the current state of research ....... 27 Settlement patterns and changing land regulations......................................... 28 An elite buried in large mounds ...................................................................... 30 Socio-political power struggles ....................................................................... 37 Far-reaching contacts and trade ....................................................................... 39 Socio–economic background .......................................................................... 41 Beyond the settled infields – historical analogies ........................................... 44 Into the great beyond — a research history .................................................. 53 The discovery of an archaeological outland ............................................. 57 A growing interest for outland archaeology ............................................. 64 A neo-empirical turn and new ways to trace the pre-history of the outlands .................................................................................................... 67 Furs and other outland resources in historical sources ............................. 70 Questions, methods and theoretical considerations — alternatives to an agrarian based narrative ................................................................................ 75 When, What, Where, Who, Why, and How? ........................................... 76 Methodological standpoints ..................................................................... 80 Theoretical considerations ........................................................................ 82 Introducing the case studies .......................................................................... 87 Case study I: Towards a refined chronology of prehistoric pitfall hunting ...................................................................................................... 89 Case study II: Whalebone gaming pieces – aspects of marine mammal exploitation in pre-Viking Scandinavia .................................................... 91 Case study III: Viking Age tar production and outland exploitation ....... 94 Case study IV: Outland exploitation and the emergence of seasonal settlements ................................................................................................ 96 Outland use in the Middle Iron Age — Resource colonisation, raw material exploitation and networks ............................................................... 99 When? — The Middle Iron Age, a time of changes ................................. 99 What? — A broad spectrum of outland resources .................................. 102 Where? — A far-reaching outland ......................................................... 105 Who? — The outlands as a middle ground ............................................ 109 Why? — Supporting the power politics of networks and trade ............. 114 Outlanders? ................................................................................................. 121 References ................................................................................................... 125 Internet references .................................................................................. 149 Förord Att genomföra forskarutbildningen på ett svenskt universitet, och att skriva examensarbetet i form av en doktorsavhandling, planeras till fyra års heltids- studier. För min del har det tagit betydligt mycket längre tid. Föreliggande examensarbete kan på många sätt ses som en sammanfattning av närmare 20 års arbete som fältarkeolog, från det att jag började gräva härdar i Östergötland 1997 till undersökningen av en stor vendeltida gravhög utanför Uppsala 2013. Detta arbete skiljer sig väsentligt, både geografiskt och kronologiskt, från vad jag trodde att jag skulle fördjupa mig i när jag tillsammans med Leif Hägg- ström sorterade neolitisk keramik från Falbygden i källaren på arkeologiska institutionen vid Göteborgs universitet i början av 1990-talet. Detta arbete ver- kar ha präglat oss båda på liknande vis eftersom Leif skrev sin avhandling om samhällsutvecklingen under järnåldern i skogsmarkerna på Sydsvenska hög- landet. Först och främst vill jag tacka Berit Wallenbergs Stiftelse