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The function and symbolism of the Swedish bronze age rampart enclosures has been debated since the late 1800´s. Arguments highlighting their function as fortifications and/ or as ritual centres has been passed back and forth in what today seems to be a subject in a standstill. Very little has been done in comparing the Swedish enclosures with their European equivalents when it comes to the understanding of function. In the early 1990´s their origin in the Lausitz culture of the Late Bronze Age was put forth by several archaeologists, but one needs to keep in mind that this was a time where the Lausitz culture was an increasingly popular subject for Swedish archaeologists to study. In time the similarities between the materials came to be questioned from both an architectural and a chronological standpoint. This paper has therefore been focused on re-examining the Swedish rampart enclosures relation to the European hill forts and fortified settlements. By examining its relations to the import of bronze and ceramics between the southern and eastern coastal areas of the Baltic Sea area and Scandinavia around 1300­-1000 BC, my main goal was to provide an updated and valid theory for the origins of the earliest Swedish rampart enclosures from the same time. Based on the analysis presented in this paper I have, to some extent, been able to distance the earliest Swedish rampart enclosures from the previous Lausitz origin theory. The conclusion is instead that an origin is to be sought in the earlier Únětice culture and it´s rampart fortified settlements from between 1800-1500 BC.

The purpose of this thesis is to elucidate the importance of the enclosure movement for the agricultural development in the area of Mälardalen, Sweden. This is done through a case study of Torstuna härad between the years 1750-1914 by sampling five points in time. By studying the long term development of land reclamation and its correlation with meadow acreage, crop rotation and animal stock the thesis argues that the the radical enclosures in the 1850’s was a course of action to regain opportunities for agricultural expansion. The most intense period of land reclamation was after the implementation of radical enclosure which brought with it a change from communal land use to private ownership. Private property rights meant a new set of advantages for the individual farmer to plan and invest and balance the arable and the meadow.

The thesis studies the agricultural revolution in the province Halland in southwestern Sweden. New tools, land reclamation, new cultivation systems, better livestock, enclosures and free holding during the period 1700-1900 are investigated. The source materials consist of estate inventories, land survey documents and present descriptions. The thesis analyses theories about the motivating forces behind the agricultural revolution used by researchers from throughout northwestern Europe: Theories about large farmers, enclosures, corn prices and the market and finaly a bottom-up theory. The results of the study are that the main motivating force behind the agricultural revolution’s advances in Halland from 1720 to 1860, and to a large extent thereafter, has been social conditions that were positive for the peasants – one aspect of the bottom-up theory. Another aspect of the bottom-up theory is that, areas with many peasant freeholders experienced faster development than the others and the areas with many tenants experienced the worst development. The thesis’ findings clearly show that this was the case. A third aspect of the bottom-up theory is peasant rationality. Many of the findings in the study have been able to reinforce the picture of rational behaviour. The first time that Halland’s farmers sold their agricultural products on a market to any great extent was around 1860. After 1860 the bottom-up theory therefore joined with the market and, to a certain degree, prices as the engine behind the changes. It stands to reason that the peasants could not have been affected by prices or a market before 1860. According to the large farmers theory, a group made up of large farmers with many employees was required for an agricultural revolution. But there were almost no large farmers of that kind in Halland. And yet an agricultural revolution took place. Several researchers maintain that radical enclosures were the decisive motivating force behind the agricultural revolution. But this thesis has been able to show that neither land reclamation, the introduction of new crops, new cultivation systems nor new tools were inhibited by the open field system that existed before the radical enclosures. Consequently radical enclosures was not a motivating force, but rather a part of the great agricultural transformation.