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The aim of this paper is to shed light on the research and travels of the pioneering Danish textile researcher Margrethe Hald regarding the rare and ancient warping technique known as the tubular loom. It retraces Hald’s steps on her quest for the tubular loom from the study of Danish bog finds through Egyptian textile remains to surviving weaving traditions in Syria and South America. Hald’s method of combining archaeology, ethnology, textile craft, and art history in her research created new understandings of past and present textile traditions and paved the way for modern interdisciplinary research. By revisiting Hald’s published and unpublished work on the subject, as well as letters and notes, this paper demonstrates how archival studies can improve understanding of the work carried out by early textile researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, the body has emerged as a rich field of theorization and scholarly exploration in archaeology. This paper is an excursion into a consideration of two body-objects of prehistoric Denmark: an anthropomorphic bronze figurine from the Fårdal assemblage dating to the late Bronze Age, and a figural gold foil with an anthropomorphic stamp from Sorte Muld, created perhaps as much as 1500 years later, in the Merovingian period (550–750 CE). The two images are made in very different materials, in distinctly different forms, and belong to different historical situations. Nevertheless, the two artefacts render what are likely women’s bodies with clear differences, but also some uncanny similarities. This article explores these artefacts from a more-than-representational perspective. Moving beyond a taxonomic approach, it focuses on aspects of these images beyond what or who they ‘represent’. What can such an approach tell us about the capacities of bodies, as well as the capacities of the artefacts themselves? This entails, following the work of Donna Haraway, worlding them in two vastly different social, material and political worlds; drawing out their making from two very different technological processes; engaging with the similarities and differences of their biographies; and, crucially, thereby contemplating their kinship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a meeting on Current research in textile archaeology along the Nile: 21-22 January 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark, which includes new research projects currently undertaken in the field of textile archaeology along the Nile valley, many of which are led by young researchers, which was hosted by Egyptologist Anne Drewsen, art historian and handweaver Ulrikka Mokdad, and archaeologist Elsa Yvanez at the Center for Textile Research (CTR).

Preserving archaeological remains in situ is one of the main objectives of the Valletta Treaty, which was signed by the Dutch government in 1992. Subsequently, preservation in situ has become one of the pillars of archaeological heritage management in the Netherlands. Another objective of the Treaty is the promotion of heritage education and raising of public awareness for the protection and investigation of archaeological heritage. Until recently, this goal has received too little attention. The design and building of an underground visitor centre, DOMunder, raised an important question: How can we transform an archaeological monument into an asset for the community and at the same time ensure long-lasting preservation? Not many parallels exist, as most archaeological sites in urban environments are seen as a burden for development. Sites are generally either excavated or left in situ; in both cases the archaeology remains invisible and inaccessible to the public. In the case of DOMunder, the location in a wet sedimentary environment provided even more challenges. This paper focuses on a few of the many questions and problems that were raised before and during the building process and the (preliminary) answers and solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents osteoarchaeological analyses of the human skeletal material from a burnt down house in Jutland, Denmark, dated to the first century bc. We describe how the osteological analyses of this complex site were approached and illustrate how we reconstructed the death of the human victims. Besides basic osteological analyses, we also tried to reconstruct the posture of the deceased humans using 12-in. posable wooden mannequins. Along with bones from several domestic animals, skeletal elements from six human individuals were recovered. All individuals were located in the eastern end of the house-the byre end. The demographic structure indicates a small family household. Our posture reconstruction further proposes that they did not die of asphyxiation while sleeping: At least two of the individuals were lying face down, trying to protect themselves. Two other individuals were lying on their side in crouching positions, which cannot be ruled out as examples of pugilistic attitude. However, we suggest this is rather unlikely. The humans could have died as they failed to rescue their invaluable animals from the fire. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flint was one of the most widely employed raw materials for artefact manufacture in Denmark and Sweden during the Stone Age, and it continued to be used during subsequent periods. Prehistoric flint mining and lithic manufacturing studies in these countries have attracted considerable attention, but there have been no recent attempts to chemically characterize the geological source materials. This paper builds on a pilot study (Hughes et al. 2010) and uses energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis to determine quantitative composition estimates for nine major, minor and certain trace elements in seven archaeologically significant flint sources in Denmark and Sweden, along with new data on a number of other sources of prehistoric significance. These data provide a geochemical foundation for ongoing research devoted to determining contrasts and continuities in the time and space utilization of flint sources in Scandinavian prehistory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The border region of present-day Denmark and Germany has had a turbulent history. This paper will discuss the different influences of both countries on the landscape and upon the local community, using a landscape biographical approach. The landscape is filled with monuments commemorating various violent events in the region. The paper analyses how the Danish minority of Germany and the small German population of Denmark reacted to these changes. It considers how these changes are marked in the landscape, looking at Schleswig-Holstein from both perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the importance of frontier studies in historical archaeology and discusses applicability of some of the concepts deriving from postcolonial theories for a better understanding of human relationships in the frontier zones. The conditions of frontiers and borderlands are compared with the characteristics of the “Third Space” described by Homi Bhabha as a realm of negotiation, translation and remaking. It is argued that concepts developed in postcolonial theories, such as “Third Space,” “in-betweeness” or hybridity, are useful not only to address cultural and social processes in borderlands that were created by colonial empires. They are also an apt way to conceptualize relationships in frontiers that lacked colonial stigma. To illustrate this point, two different historical examples of borderlands are scrutinized in this paper: the medieval frontier region that emerged between Denmark and the Northwestern Slavic area and the creation of the colonial frontier in Northeastern America through the establishment of the Praying Indian Towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the world, cultural heritage is eradicated at an unprecedented rate by development, agriculture, and natural erosion. Remote sensing using airborne and satellite sensors is an essential tool for rapidly investigating human traces over large surfaces of our planet, but even large monumental structures may be visible as only faint indications on the surface. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of a machine learning approach using airborne laser scanning data to address a "needle-in-a-haystack" problem, which involves the search for remnants of Viking ring fortresses throughout Denmark. First ring detection was applied using the Hough circle transformations and template matching, which detected 202,048 circular features in Denmark. This was reduced to 199 candidate sites by using their geometric properties and the application of machine learning techniques to classify the cultural and topographic context of the features. Two of these near perfectly circular features are convincing candidates for Viking Age fortresses, and two are candidates for either glacial landscape features or simple meteor craters. Ground-truthing revealed the latter sites as ice age features, while the cultural heritage sites Borgø and Trælbanke urge renewed archaeological investigation in the light of our findings. The fact that machine learning identifies compelling new candidate sites for ring fortresses demonstrates the power of the approach. Our automatic approach is applicable worldwide where digital terrain models are available to search for cultural heritage sites, geomorphological features, and meteor impact craters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from Late Palaeolithic to early Mesolithic cultures is strongly associated with the major environmental and climatic changes occurring with the shift from the Younger Dryas to the Holocene in northern Europe. In this paper, we present an interdisciplinary study combining archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research in an attempt to examine the relationship between environment and culture during this transition. Lundby Mose is a former kettle hole lake in southern Denmark where the earliest Danish human traces of the Holocene were excavated. Two types of bone deposits were found, 1) ritual offerings of worked, marrow-split elk bones and antler and 2) settlement waste with multiple species. These date to the early Holocene and are affiliated to the early Maglemose culture. The modelled 14 C ages suggest that the bones were deposited in four phases. A pollen based palaeoenvironmental reconstruction suggests that the ritual offerings were deposited in an environment of limited, underdeveloped forest with unstable soils and areas of open grassland. The settlement waste deposit is associated with a more developed Preboreal forest type. This forest type was not fully established until c. 11,250 cal BP and if substantiated by further evidence, may be one of the reasons why there are no known early Maglemose/Preboreal settlement sites in southern Scandinavia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long‐term agricultural field experiments are essential for quantifying changes in soil properties and associated crop productivity that occur slowly but continue over long periods. Initiated in 1894 in the South of Denmark, the Askov long‐term experiment (LTE) is among the few LTEs in the world that continued for more than 125 years. The experiment compares different rates of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium applied in mineral fertilizers or animal manure with abundant treatment replicates. With well‐managed treatments, detailed yield records, and a soil archive dating back to 1923, today the Askov‐LTE represents a unique platform for research not envisioned at the start of experiments. Here, we provide a short description of site characteristics and experimental layout, examples of historic crop yields and changes in soil carbon (C) content. We provide short overviews of some of the studies that have used the Askov‐LTE as a research platform. These include crop yield‐related research; models simulating changes in soil C; availability of soil P reserves; indicators of biological, chemical, and physical soil quality; and studies related to prehistoric archaeology. Finally, we offer some reflections on long‐term field experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, new augmented recording techniques have entered archaeological fieldwork. We review a major urban excavation in Ribe, Denmark, which has adopted a systematic use of 3D laser scanning and intensive soil and sediment micromorphological sampling as part of the excavation recording practice. Both methods represent a major advance in field documentation, achieving a higher degree of detail and precision for the recording of archaeological features. We argue that these technologies also challenge the current paradigm of single-context recording, i.e. the separation of layers and features as all-encompassing units of recording. First, 3D digital recording implies that contexts are defined in a more definite way than previously, with less flexibility for recursive revision. Second, micromorphology demonstrates how the strata separated in excavation are only a subset of those created in deposition. We call for a new approach, which takes into consideration the fact that excavation units do not always mirror depositional events, as assumed by single-context theory, and that different kinds of observations may not overlap, as assumed in single-context practice. Instead, interfaces, matrices and assemblages are restored as separate units to record and feed into the interpretation cycle. This may be described as recording metacontext: observations that go across or between contexts. We demonstrate how a systematic metacontext registration can lead to a manageable and more detailed excavation record, more faithful to the archaeologists' observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complementary use of various archaeological prospection data sets offers a series of new possibilities for the investigation of prehistoric settlements. In addition to the separate interpretations of the single methods, the implementation of image fusion provides an additional tool to obtain an even higher degree of data integration during the interpretation process. To investigate some possibilities and risks of image fusion, a procedure frequently used in the medical field but rarely applied in archaeology, various algorithms inside a dedicated MATLAB toolbox TAIFU (Toolbox for Archaeological Image FUsion) were tested on the geophysical prospection data from an Iron Age settlement near Vesterager in West Jutland, Denmark. The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology had conducted large-scale, high-resolution ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometry surveys at the site in 2014, based on its discovery by the Ringkøbing Museum through aerial photos and the results of a follow-up excavation in 2009. The aim was to determine if, and to what extent, geophysical prospection together with a novel integrative interpretational approach was able to add more detailed information to an already known prehistoric settlement. Results yielded a variety of deeper insights into the separate farms (dated to around AD 400), including the discovery of several new structures and more information about the construction of the longhouses, as well as a first suggestion on how to implement image fusion into the process of analysis and archaeological interpretation of geophysical data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Denmark has an extraordinarily large and well-preserved collection of archaeological skin garments found in peat bogs, dated to approximately 920 BC – AD 775. These objects provide not only the possibility to study prehistoric skin costume and technologies, but also to investigate the animal species used for the production of skin garments. Until recently, species identification of archaeological skin was primarily performed by light and scanning electron microscopy or the analysis of ancient DNA. However, the efficacy of these methods can be limited due to the harsh, mostly acidic environment of peat bogs leading to morphological and molecular degradation within the samples. We compared species assignment results of twelve archaeological skin samples from Danish bogs using Mass Spectrometry (MS)-based peptide sequencing, against results obtained using light and scanning electron microscopy. While it was difficult to obtain reliable results using microscopy, MS enabled the identification of several species-diagnostic peptides, mostly from collagen and keratins, allowing confident species discrimination even among taxonomically close organisms, such as sheep and goat. Unlike previous MS-based methods, mostly relying on peptide fingerprinting, the shotgun sequencing approach we describe aims to identify the complete extracted ancient proteome, without preselected specific targets. As an example, we report the identification, in one of the samples, of two peptides uniquely assigned to bovine foetal haemoglobin, indicating the production of skin from a calf slaughtered within the first months of its life. We conclude that MS-based peptide sequencing is a reliable method for species identification of samples from bogs. The mass spectrometry proteomics data were deposited in the ProteomeXchange Consortium with the dataset identifier PXD001029. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologists routinely deal with the remains of everyday life. Yet the significance and dimensions of daily practices are rarely reflected upon. Merging Bourdieu’s theory of practice, recent theories of everyday life and the materiality approach in archaeology, this study addresses the potential importance of daily practices and mundane objects in dealing with a rupture caused by migration. As a case study I use an example of medieval (eleventh century) Western Slavic migration to the island of Bornholm (Denmark) and production and daily handling of ceramic pots, the so-called Baltic ware. I explore the possible background to the introduction of the new pottery style, its significance for the local population of the island and above all the meanings these types of ceramics could have had for the immigrant Slavs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the discovery of a mummified corpse of a woman in Haraldskjær Bog in the eastern part of Denmark. Found on October 20, 1835, the body was identified by N. M. Petersen, a philologist and historian, as the Norwegian Queen Gunhild. His interpretation was based on "Jómsvíkinga saga," and on etymological analysis of the location of the find. He was challenged by an archaeologist, J. J. A. Worsaae, who described Petersen's interpretation as faulty and imaginative. Petersen rebutted with an article in "Annaler" and complained that Worsaae's investigation had taken the investigation backward. The author noted that the never-ending reception on Queen Gunhild did not provide completed explanation of the nature and identity of the bog-body.

In the third century ad a group of women, who wore a certain kind of bead set on the chest, was buried in a burial ground in Skovgårde in the southern part of Zealand in Denmark. I suggest that these women constituted a sub-group in which the members shared the skill of skalding and that the pieces in the bead sets, of which many were exotic and old already when they were worn, had been used as mnemonics during the composing of stories and poetry. The members of this sub-group were societal equals in the matter of class and gender but, nonetheless, a hierarchical order probably existed within the group based on skill, age and experience. However, the relations between the members of the group were probably mainly of a cooperative nature and as a sub-group they may have had opportunities for common strategies in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]