Abstract
The authors challenge the opinion that a traditional hunter-gatherer culture existed during the Iron Age in the forested interior of central Norrland (En. Northern Sweden). Two new and several earlier pollen analyses together with osteological finds from domestic animals confirm that extensive forest grazing was widespread throughout the interior. The distribution of iron slag deposits suggests that iron production is a key factor to understanding the society in the area. The modes of subsistence, the low-technology ironwork, and a common conceptual world as reflected in the graves on the coast and in the interior can be viewed as elements of an early capitalistic system.
Highlights
The Råmyren diagram tells us about the land use around the site, but in order to set an initiation date for forest grazing in a wider region including Råinget and Nämforsen, additional pollen analyses must be performed from the area
Environmental history studies have established that inland subsistence in central Norrland during the Iron Age was characterised by diversity and flexibility, not by a uniform and static hunter-gatherer culture
In the southern parts of the region there is evidence that shielings may have existed during the Iron Age
Summary
The palaeoecological investigations were performed in two areas in the northern part of the province of Ångermanland (Fig. 1). The first study site, Råmyren, is situated one km north of the excavated settlement of Råinget I (Ådalsliden parish Raä 123) (Fig. 1). The second study site is a mire by Lake Hotingssjön, Tåsjö parish, which belongs to the Fjällsjöälven river system (Fig. 1). On Långön, an island in Lake Hotingssjön, there is a burialground in which 11 low burial mounds from the Viking Age have been excavated (Tåsjö parish, Raä 155a). This is the northernmost burial-ground of Viking Age type in Sweden (Hvarfner 1957, 1966; Ambrosiani et al 1984:62 63; Zachrisson 1994, 1997b:24—228; Bolin 2001:22). The site at Hotingsmyran, situated on the mainland 2 km east of Långön, is a small mire, one hectare in size, and covered with a multi-layered mixed forest of spruce (Picea abies) and deciduous trees
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