Where Wandering Water Gushes – the Depositional Landscape of the Mälaren Valley in the Late Bronze Age and Earliest Iron Age of Scandinavia

Abstract

This paper deals with how the deposition of metalwork and animal and human remains into water and wet places may have contributed to the shaping of knowledge and the creation of social entities during the Late Bronze Age and Earliest Iron Age in the Mälaren Valley. This paper constitutes a part of a larger research project – Tidens Vatten – that has a particular focus on investigating the practices around the deposition of human and animal remains in watery places during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Sweden. The initial study lays the ground for a further analysis of how the deposition of metalwork in the Mälaren Valley may be understood in relation to the deposition of human remains and to other water and wetland features in the landscape. In this area the water-landscape and waterscape was considerably different in the Bronze and Earliest Iron Age due to shore displacement and the paper shows the importance of waterways and connections for these depositions, which would be a part of waters' agency.