AmS-Skrifter
type: channel
description: AmS-Skrifter covers the field of archaeology, including various themes like archaeological method and theory, interdiciplinary studies, museology, heritage management, conservation studies, field work and practice.
publisher: Stavanger Museum of Archaelogy
language: en
publication name: AmS-Skrifter
issn: 0800-0816
items: 9. Together in Death: Demography and Funerary Practices in Contemporary Multiple Internments in Irish Medieval Burial Grounds
items: Bronze Age and Early Iron Age house and settlement development at Forsandmoen, south-western Norway
items: Intentional fire management in the Holocene with emphasis on hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic in South Norway
items: 2. Funerary Treatment of Immature Deceased in Neolithic Collective Burial Sites in France. Were Children Buried with Adults?
items: 3. Personal Relationships between Co-buried Individuals in the Central European Early Bronze Age
items: 4. Grandparents in the Bronze Age?
items: 5. White Hair and Feeding Bottles: Exploring Interactions Between Children and the Elderly in the Late Bronze Age Aegean
items: 6. A Search Through the Archives: Looking for the Young and the Old in a Museum's Collections
items: 7. Multiple Liminalitites in Early Anglo-Saxon England: Age, Gender and Religion
items: 8. The Old and The Young in Early Medieval Iceland: The Evidence for Three-generational Families in the Household Cemeteries of Skagafjorður, Northern Iceland
items: 10. Expoloring Age - Transition Analysis as a Tool for Detecting the Elderly
items: The North Atlantic trade of Hamburg (c. 1400–1650)
items: Preface
items: Abbreviations
items: Rumpelstiltsken’s feat: cloth and German trade with Iceland
items: Introduction: German trade in the North Atlantic
items: The North Atlantic trade with Iceland, Shetland, Orkney and the Faroes and the policy of the Hanseatic Diet (1369–1535)
items: Bergen’s role in the medieval North Atlantic trade
items: Bremen’s trade with the North Atlantic, c. 1400–1700
items: Hanseatic fish trade in the North Atlantic: evidence of fish remains from Hanse cities in Germany
items: Fish for grain? Archaeoentomological research and emerging patterns of exchange
items: Medieval and early modern ceramics in urban and rural Norway as evidence for trade within the Hanseatic world
items: Ships and their timber source as indicators of connections between regions
items: Shetland and her German merchants, c. 1450–1710
items: Low German influence on the Scandinavian languages in late medieval times – some comments on loan words, word-forming, syntactic structures and names
items: Cultural colonialism as a result of commercial activities: the linguistic perspective
items: The ships that headed north - an archaeological perspective
items: A fifteenth-century shipwreck with Scandinavian features from Bremen. Interpreting the Beluga ship in the context of late medieval clinker construction in northwestern Europe
items: Notau – the Hanseatic harbour at Avaldsnes, south-west Norway: written sources, maps and place-names

9. Together in Death: Demography and Funerary Practices in Contemporary Multiple Internments in Irish Medieval Burial Grounds
type: item
description: Contemporary multiple interment is a minority burial practice occasionally encountered in Medieval Christian burial grounds that is suggestive of the death of two or more individuals at the same time followed by a conscious decision by the living to bury those individuals together. The study reviews the evidence from thirty-one Irish burial grounds (spanning AD 300 to 1700) to explore the nature of the demographic combinations apparent in these contemporary multiple interments. Drawing upon information gleaned from contemporary historical sources, an attempt will be made to proffer possible scenarios to account for the different demographic configurations apparent in the burials. Funerary practices, in particular, positioning of the bodies, will be explored to see if insights can be gained concerning the nature of the potential social relationships that may have existed between those interred together in each grave. The findings from Ireland will be compared to those of studies of similar burials in Anglo-Saxon England.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Minority burial practice
  topic: keywords
subject: emotion
  topic: keywords
subject: double burial
  topic: keywords
subject: community
  topic: keywords
subject: general and inter-general relationships
  topic: keywords
creator: Eileen Murphy
creator: Colm Donnelly
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 119
ending page: 142
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.214

Bronze Age and Early Iron Age house and settlement development at Forsandmoen, south-western Norway
type: item
subject: Folder
  topic: section
creator: Trond Løken
rights: Copyright (c) 2020 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2020-12-31
publication date: 2020-12-31
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.vi28.378

Intentional fire management in the Holocene with emphasis on hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic in South Norway
type: item
description: The geographical and altitudinal distribution of the data from 68 palynological sites has allowed the synthesis of a relationship between the microscopic charcoal curves and people over time. Most of the selected sites were of archaeological interest. Quantitative methods, qualitative methods and topics about the relation between fire, charcoal, nature and people in a forested landscape were used. Palynological sites are better suited to revealing fire management activities in the Mesolithic than archaeological sites because intentional burning of vegetation was carried out in areas related to lakes and mires. Climate is ruled out as the cause of the charcoal occurrence because there are no correlations between inferred regional climatic changes and the charcoal. This suggests that an anthropogenic explanation for the charcoal occurrence is the most plausible. There are many indications that hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic used fire management and that fire was an important part of cultural practice associated with settlement, population density and resource needs. Fire management was a common and regular work task integrated with other activities. The traditional lifestyle of foragers may have included customary controlled burning practices as a part of manipulating the ecological succession and the modification of vegetation communities. Burning may have been central to hunting and gathering practices and the key to many social and cultural activities. The timing of burns may have been related to weather conditions, time of year and annual cultural events. The different pattern of temporal changes in charcoal abundance suggests that no widespread burning (i.e. on a regional or landscape-scale) had taken place. The anthropogenic burning was different from natural fires. The fires set by people were smaller and less intense. Selected areas of vegetation were burnt on a recurrent basis. They were predictable, almost immediately productive, creating mosaics in a co…
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Mesolithic
  topic: keywords
subject: hunter-gatherer
  topic: keywords
subject: intentional burning
  topic: keywords
subject: fire management
  topic: keywords
subject: South Norway
  topic: keywords
subject: palynological analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: microscopic charcoal
  topic: keywords
subject: etnographical analogy
  topic: keywords
creator: Lotte Selsing
rights: Copyright (c) 2016 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2016-12-31
publication date: 2016-12-31
starting page: 1
ending page: 131
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.vi25.227

Bronze Age and Early Iron Age house and settlement development at Forsandmoen, south-western Norway
type: item
description: The ambition of this monograph is to analyse a limited number of topics regarding house types and thus social and economic change from the extensive material that came out of the archaeological excavation that took place at Forsandmoen (“Forsand plain”), Forsand municipality, Rogaland, Norway during the decade 1980–1990, as well as the years 1992, 1995 and 2007. The excavation was organised as an interdisciplinary research project within archaeology, botany (palynological analysis from bogs and soils, macrofossil analysis) and phosphate analysis, conducted by staff from the Museum of Archaeology in Stavanger (as it was called until 2009, now part of the University of Stavanger). A large phosphate survey project had demarcaded a 20 ha settlement area, among which 9 ha were excavated using mechanical topsoil stripping to expose the habitation traces at the top of the glaciofluvial outwash plain of Forsandmoen. A total of 248 houses could be identified by archaeological excavations, distributed among 17 house types. In addition, 26 partly excavated houses could not be classified into a type. The extensive house material comprises three types of longhouses, of which there are as many as 30–40 in number, as well as four other longhouse types, of which there are only 2–7 in number. There were nine other house types, comprising partly small dwelling houses and partly storage houses, of which there were 3–10 in number. Lastly, there are 63 of the smallest storage house, consisting of only four postholes in a square shape. A collection of 264 radiocarbon dates demonstrated that the settlement was established in the last part of the 15th century BC and faded out during the 7th–8th century AD, encompassing the Nordic Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. As a number of houses comprising four of the house types were excavated with the same methods in the same area by the same staff, it is a major goal of this monograph to analyse thoroughly the different features of the houses (postho…
subject: Book
  topic: section
subject: settlement
  topic: keywords
subject: village
  topic: keywords
subject: house types
  topic: keywords
subject: longhouse
  topic: keywords
subject: workshop
  topic: keywords
subject: house life expectancy
  topic: keywords
subject: byre
  topic: keywords
subject: activity areas
  topic: keywords
subject: AD 536
  topic: keywords
subject: palanylogical analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: macrofossil analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: phosphate analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: Bronze Age
  topic: keywords
subject: Pre-Roman Iron Age
  topic: keywords
subject: Roman Iron Age
  topic: keywords
subject: Migration Period
  topic: keywords
creator: Trond Løken
rights: Copyright (c) 2020 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2020-12-31
publication date: 2020-12-31
starting page: 1
ending page: 300
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.vi28.377

2. Funerary Treatment of Immature Deceased in Neolithic Collective Burial Sites in France. Were Children Buried with Adults?
type: item
description: In France, collective burial sites of the Late Neolithic period (3600-2100 BC) include a variety of structures ranging from simple pits and natural caves to hypogea and megalithic structures. The management of these graves raises questions about their representativeness and about burial practices involving non-adult individuals. This study of funerary selection based on age-at-death compares the results obtained for different sites and offers several potential interpretations concerning the integration of immature individuals in these collective tombs based on their age. The study highlights a particular selection observed in various funerary structures and a chronological difference between northern and southern France. These first results lead to a discussion of distinct cultural choices among different geographical areas.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Neolithic
  topic: keywords
subject: funerary selection
  topic: keywords
subject: immature individuals
  topic: keywords
subject: collective graves
  topic: keywords
creator: Melie Le Roy
creator: Stéphane Rottier
creator: Frédéric Santos
creator: Anne-Marie Tillier
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 21
ending page: 34
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.207

3. Personal Relationships between Co-buried Individuals in the Central European Early Bronze Age
type: item
description: People were usually buried in single, individual graves in Early Bronze Age Austria and the surrounding areas, but there are some exceptions. In burials of two or more people, it is often the way that bodies were placed in relation to each other that suggests familiarity, if not family. This paper reviews the social relations expressed through co-burials, and aims to better understand relationships between couples, siblings, or parents and children. The chapter particularly highlights mother-child relationships and presents graves of pregnant women and graves of women and children buried together, in order to understand how such individuals were treated by their societies in death. Ages and age gaps between co-buried individuals reveal the most likely ages for life-transitions such as first motherhood and the addition of new family members. The analysis compares evidence from two different, but contemporary cultural groups (Únětice and Unterwölbing) to shed light on prehistoric gender relations, family structures and social organisation through the lens of the burial record.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Bronze Age
  topic: keywords
subject: Austria
  topic: keywords
subject: motherhood
  topic: keywords
subject: age relations
  topic: keywords
subject: mother
  topic: keywords
subject: child
  topic: keywords
creator: Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 35
ending page: 48
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.208

4. Grandparents in the Bronze Age?
type: item
description: Evolutionary biology and ethnographic analogy suggest that grandparenting has been critical to the development of human life history and may even explain modern human longevity. However, the roles and functions of grandparents have not previously been investigated in later prehistoric contexts. Ethnographic studies show that grandparents take on an extremely wide range of roles worldwide, whether this is teaching knowledge and skills, providing childcare, or even taking on parental roles and titles. In many cases, grandparents play a critical role in the support and socialization of children. Understanding the roles of grandparents thus has the potential to transform our understanding of prehistoric household and family structures. Through a case study of the Early Bronze Age Traisental in Austria, I explore potential methods for identification of grandparents in the past, and consider the effects of social formations on grandparenting.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Grandmother hypothesis
  topic: keywords
subject: grandparents
  topic: keywords
subject: care
  topic: keywords
subject: mobility
  topic: keywords
creator: Jo Appleby
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 49
ending page: 60
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.209

5. White Hair and Feeding Bottles: Exploring Interactions Between Children and the Elderly in the Late Bronze Age Aegean
type: item
description: Scholarship on age and gender in prehistoric Greece has taken an adult-centric approach with focus placed mostly on young to middle-aged men and women and, as a result, two significant age groups – children and the elderly – have been widely neglected. Lacking a strong insight into attitudes that were shown towards these two age groups, however means that archaeologists do not really harbour a concept of the whole span of life in the cultures that developed in the Aegean region during the Late Bronze Age. Making children and the elderly visible in the archaeological record and examining their social roles, agency and interactions is vital for a better understanding of the social workings of the prehistoric Aegean world. Integrating an interdisciplinary methodology with a systematic study of the available material remains – ranging from the study of funerary contexts to iconographic sources and textual references, this study seeks to assess the evidence for childhood and old age in the Late Bronze Age Aegean, and to shed light − for the first time − on the interactions between the younger and older segments of the population in both life and death from the mid-seventeenth to the twelfth centuries BC.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Chldhood
  topic: keywords
subject: old age
  topic: keywords
subject: Aegean
  topic: keywords
subject: socialisation
  topic: keywords
subject: alloparenting
  topic: keywords
subject: apprenticeship
  topic: keywords
creator: Chrysanthi Gallou
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 61
ending page: 76
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.210

6. A Search Through the Archives: Looking for the Young and the Old in a Museum's Collections
type: item
description: The chapter details research conducted as part of the BEVARES (Biological EnVironmental and Archaeological interdisciplinary RESearch on life-course, material and materiality in human depositions) programme at the Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger. Initially an attempt to gain a better understanding of the museum’s archived bone material, as well as evaluate the information potential of analysing/re-analysing the (primarily) burnt/cremated bone within that material, the work moved towards identifying evidence for the young and the old in the burial record. This led to an interest in the intersection of the young and the old in the burial record as a potential new area of archaeological study. The current project focuses on burials of these two groups. Bronze and Iron Age bone assemblages from Rogaland county, southwestern Norway, are included in the study. A variety of factors were quantified, but the age of the individuals and the number of people per burial are of primary relevance here. Initial results have revealed some interesting trends – the number of sub-adults in the burial record is much greater than previously thought, and the mortality pattern seen in Rogaland is quite different from that evident in comparable material from Eastern Norway. The occurrence of young and old individuals in the same burial context does not appear to be a common phenomenon.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Bronze Age
  topic: keywords
subject: Iron Age
  topic: keywords
subject: Norway
  topic: keywords
subject: preservation
  topic: keywords
subject: cremated bone
  topic: keywords
subject: age determination
  topic: keywords
creator: Sean Denham
creator: Mari Høgestøl
creator: Grete Lillehammer
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 77
ending page: 90
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.211

7. Multiple Liminalitites in Early Anglo-Saxon England: Age, Gender and Religion
type: item
description: Liminalities and ambiguities can be useful in identifying complex patterns in many areas of study. This paper examines two elderly burials from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery of Mill Hill, Deal, Kent in England. These two individuals display multiple liminalities, particularly with respect to their advanced age, gendered identities and in their potential religious beliefs. Their advanced age suggests they spent the last years of their lives in the knowledge that they were close to the ultimate transition: death. Moreover, being quite elderly has likely affected their gendered identities, rendering them muted, altered and/or de-gendered. The combination of their elderly status, their physical position in the cemetery and the phasing of their graves suggests they were the last two individuals buried at Mill Hill, possibly some considerable time after it had gone out of general use. Their graves are dated to the Final Phase or Conversion Period of Early Anglo-Saxon England when, among other changes, Christianity begins to become the dominant religion; this and the presence of an unexcavated cemetery nearby, with goods pointing to a later date than this one, suggests the possibility that these two individuals were the last pagans in their community. These are all factors which point to the multiple liminalities of the two individuals.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Mortuary archaeology
  topic: keywords
subject: archaeology of religion
  topic: keywords
subject: gender
  topic: keywords
subject: old age
  topic: keywords
subject: pagan
  topic: keywords
subject: Christian
  topic: keywords
creator: Christine Cave
creator: Marc Oxenham
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 91
ending page: 104
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.212

8. The Old and The Young in Early Medieval Iceland: The Evidence for Three-generational Families in the Household Cemeteries of Skagafjorður, Northern Iceland
type: item
description: In recent years, a number of early Christian cemeteries have been excavated in the region of Skagafjörður, North Iceland. They belonged to, and were managed by, occupants of individual farms and were in use from around AD 1000-1120. These household cemeteries differ from the sparse pagan burial record in that they are ‘all inclusive’, i.e. they include individuals of both sexes and all ages, and essentially represent all inhabitants of a household. An interesting feature of the cemeteries is the large number of interred infants and relatively large number of ‘older’ individuals. By looking at the osteological data in conjunction with the placement of burials within cemeteries a more detailed picture of the Medieval household emerges, including the perception of the young and the aged and the possible role of three-generation families in the transference of knowledge and life experience. This paper discusses how this unique material can add to the predominantly philological and historical discussions on the nature, composition and social interactions of the Medieval Icelandic household.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Medieval Iceland
  topic: keywords
subject: households
  topic: keywords
subject: Christianity
  topic: keywords
subject: children
  topic: keywords
subject: the old
  topic: keywords
subject: generation
  topic: keywords
creator: Guðný Zoega
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 105
ending page: 118
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.213

10. Expoloring Age - Transition Analysis as a Tool for Detecting the Elderly
type: item
description: The growth of gender archaeology has improved the inclusion of female and juvenile narratives in archaeological discourse, enabling us to better understand interactions between groups defined by both social and physiological differences. There has been a notable absence of elderly in research, however, that is not simply a question of attitudes but of methodological limitations. The emergence of biostatistics has offered novel ways to combat common issues such as age mimicry and avoid the problematic nature of culturally loaded descriptive terminology. A test performed on Transition Analysis by Boldsen et al. (2002), generates individual age estimates, which allow for better differentiation between individuals and age groups, such as the ‘45+ older adults’. Further research into biostatistical methods will not only improve objectivity but bring much-needed attention to the elderly, including their narrative into the investigation of family dynamics and adult-juvenile interactions.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Osteology
  topic: keywords
subject: age estimation
  topic: keywords
subject: biostatistics
  topic: keywords
subject: Bayes' theorem
  topic: keywords
subject: Transition Analysis
  topic: keywords
creator: Nina Maaranen
creator: Jo Buckberry
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2019-05-02
publication date: 2019-05-02
starting page: 143
ending page: 154
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i26.215

The North Atlantic trade of Hamburg (c. 1400–1650)
type: item
description: Hamburg was the main north German town trading with the western North Atlantic region in the period between 1450 and 1650. Other towns, such as Lübeck, Wismar and Rostock also called at Bergen, but the contact of German seafaring merchants with Iceland was dominated by men from Hamburg. Even after the closing of the island to all except Danish-Norwegian merchants by the Danish kings, the trade with Hamburg continued and partly bypassing the warehouse in Glückstadt. The main export commodities were grain and cloth, while back came fish and sulphur, besides some articles of minor significance. The Shetland trade also had some importance for the Hamburg merchants, importing fish and exporting grain and fishing material. In general, the North Atlantic trade was of minor importance in the total of the Hamburg trade which was dominated by transactions with western (Holland, England, France) and south-western (Portugal, Spain) Europe. The highest profits were made in that sphere.
subject: Part I: The context and character of trade
  topic: section
subject: ships
  topic: keywords
subject: shipping
  topic: keywords
subject: ship archaeology
  topic: keywords
subject: trade
  topic: keywords
subject: technology
  topic: keywords
subject: technology transfer
  topic: keywords
creator: Klaus-J. Lorenzen-Schmidt
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 63
ending page: 72
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.256

Preface
type: item
description: Preface by the editors
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Natascha Mehler
creator: Mark Gardiner
creator: Endre Elvestad
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 3
ending page: 4
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.260

Abbreviations
type: item
description: Abbreviations used in the publication
subject: Abbreviations
  topic: section
creator: Natascha Mehler
creator: Mark Gardiner
creator: Endre Elvestad
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 7
ending page: 7
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.261

Rumpelstiltsken’s feat: cloth and German trade with Iceland
type: item
description: Identifying foreign cloth imports in the Icelandic archaeological corpus is difficult at best, yet given widespread similarities in homespun cloth from sites across the country, imported cloth can be identified visually through the presence of refined finishing techniques (such as teaseling, shearing, and fulling) that were uncommon in Iceland and were the products of specialist craftsmen in Europe. This paper examines textile assemblages from deposits datable to the period of Hanseatic trade at three sites, Gilsbakki, Reykholt, and Stóra-Borg that represent two wealthy, interior, parish centres and a moderate-sized coastal farm, respectively. Variations in the number and diversity of imported cloth items within these sites’ assemblages suggest that while Hanseatic material culture was widely spread on Icelandic rural sites, the nature of the material culture sub-assemblages attributable to Hanseatic trade was not obviously a direct function of households’ wealth or proximity to harbours but may have engaged other cultural factors linked to the political and social challenges of the post-Reformation period and the roles of individual households in regional or intra-Icelandic trade.
subject: Part II: The commodities of trade
  topic: section
subject: Hanse
  topic: keywords
subject: cloth import
  topic: keywords
subject: trade
  topic: keywords
subject: English cloth
  topic: keywords
subject: Icelandic cloth
  topic: keywords
creator: Michéle Hayeur Smith
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 107
ending page: 120
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.262

Introduction: German trade in the North Atlantic
type: item
description: Trade from 1400 onwards had an impact upon the North Atlantic region quite out of proportion to its volume. The opening of a ready market for dried fish, in particular, but also cloth, train oil and sulphur encouraged the production for export on a much larger scale than before. In return, a greater range of finished goods and raw materials was supplied by German merchants. Initially, trade was channelled through Bergen, but this system broke down, largely because English merchants sailed to Iceland. From the 1470s onwards, the number of German ships travelling to Iceland and Shetland increased. The Danish government struggled to control the trade in their North Atlantic territories, but first in the Faroes and later in Iceland, they sought to impose greater restrictions on foreign merchants. The Danes licensed ships to trade at certain ports and from 1601 attempted to restrict the trade to their own merchants. The introduction summarizes the history of German trade in the North Atlantic, and outlines its economic and cultural impacts.
subject: Introduction
  topic: section
subject: interdisciplinarity
  topic: keywords
subject: North Atlantic
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanse
  topic: keywords
subject: trade
  topic: keywords
subject: impact
  topic: keywords
creator: Mark Gardiner
creator: Natascha Mehler
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 9
ending page: 24
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.282

The North Atlantic trade with Iceland, Shetland, Orkney and the Faroes and the policy of the Hanseatic Diet (1369–1535)
type: item
description: This paper explores the limits of the Hanseatic Diet’s ability to regulate Hanseatic trade with Iceland and the North Atlantic island groups of Shetland, Orkney and the Faroes*. It comes to the conclusion that the Hanseatic Diets prohibited direct commercial links to Shetland, Orkney and the Faroes consistently from 1416, but turned a blind eye to the Iceland trade. The reasons for this inconsistent policy were the necessity of maintaining the Bergen’s monopoly on the stockfish trade (which was also in the interest of the Danish-Norwegian crown), while at the same time keeping the door open for Hanseatic merchants who were not active in the Bergen trade to forge commercial links with Iceland, albeit at their own risk. The representatives of the Hanseatic towns often preferred to leave an issue undecided, in order to keep as many options open as possible. The huge divergence in the interests of merchants and towns forced the Diet to dissemble, pursuing policies out of the public gaze which subverted the resolutions the Diet had passed for public consumption.
subject: Part I: The context and character of trade
  topic: section
subject: North Atlantic trade
  topic: keywords
subject: stockfish
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanseatic towns
  topic: keywords
subject: merchants
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanseatic Diet
  topic: keywords
subject: two-faced policy
  topic: keywords
subject: monopoly
  topic: keywords
subject: Bergen
  topic: keywords
creator: Rolf Hammel-Kiesow
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 27
ending page: 42
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.253

Bergen’s role in the medieval North Atlantic trade
type: item
description: North Atlantic trade in the high Middle Ages was centred on Bergen. The Bergen connection was important to the North Atlantic islanders and townsmen who specialized in trading with them, but up to the early fourteenth century did not count for much in Bergen’s total trade. This changed when larger assignments of Icelandic stockfish were sent to Bergen from the 1340s and reexported via the town’s Hanseatic settlement, the later Kontor. During the fifteenth century fish exports from the North Atlantic to Bergen declined sharply as the English increasingly fetched their fish directly from Iceland, and Hanseatic merchants from Hamburg and Lübeck followed in their wake to Iceland and the more southerly islands. Yet, in the author’s opinion, Hanseatic trade with the North Atlantic from Bergen was not reduced to the degree that has often been assumed. And it should not be overlooked that Bergen had economic relations with the North Atlantic islands outside the Hanse.
subject: Part I: The context and character of trade
  topic: section
subject: Bergen
  topic: keywords
subject: Kontor
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanseatic trade
  topic: keywords
subject: stockfish
  topic: keywords
subject: North Atlantic
  topic: keywords
creator: Knut Helle
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 43
ending page: 51
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.254

Bremen’s trade with the North Atlantic, c. 1400–1700
type: item
description: There is little evidence of Bremen merchants in Norway before the royal charters issued from 1279 onwards, even though Bremen had been the seat of the missionary archbishop for the Nordic countries since the ninth century. Trade in Bergen in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was dominated by the Hanseatic cities of the Baltic Sea coast led by merchants from Lübeck. Despite opposition from Hanseatic merchants sailing to Bergen, merchants from Hamburg and Bremen developed new trading posts to barter cod on Iceland and Shetland in the fifteenth century. Traders from Hamburg and Bremen on Iceland competed for licences issued by the Danish king. The 1558 debt register of a merchant from Bremen in Kumbaravogur provides considerable insight into this trade. The Danish king restricted sailings to Iceland to Danish merchants from 1601. On Shetland the Scottish foud allotted landing places to foreign skippers and traders. Merchants from Bremen became respected members of the island communities and in the seventeenth century they changed to trading in herring. Several tariff rate rises led to the end of Bremen sailings to Shetland by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Bremen merchants in Norway succeeded in breaking the Lübeck dominance in Bergen in the sixteenth century. By 1600, other Norwegian harbours in the North Atlantic, notably Stavanger, were also destinations for ships from Bremen.
subject: Part I: The context and character of trade
  topic: section
subject: Bremen
  topic: keywords
subject: trade
  topic: keywords
subject: Iceland
  topic: keywords
subject: Shetland
  topic: keywords
subject: Norway
  topic: keywords
subject: fish-trade
  topic: keywords
creator: Adolf E. Hofmeister
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 53
ending page: 61
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.255

Hanseatic fish trade in the North Atlantic: evidence of fish remains from Hanse cities in Germany
type: item
description: This paper reviews the evidence for the Hanseatic fish trade in the North Atlantic from the perspective of the consumer sites: the Hanse cities in Germany. Stockfish, the most important good in the North Atlantic trade, are discussed from an archaeozoological perspective. The evidence from Hanse cities accumulated thus far is presented and evaluated. The amount of fish remains analysed from Hanse cities in Germany is still very low, which precludes in-depth research and wider conclusions. Nevertheless, overall patterns appear that are generally consistent with the assumptions of patterns for imported stockfish: high frequencies of Gadidae among the fish remains of coastal Hanse cities, overrepresentation of postcranial skeletal elements, prevailing remains of large size classes, and isotopic data supporting the hypothesis.
subject: Part II: The commodities of trade
  topic: section
subject: Gadidae
  topic: keywords
subject: stockfish
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanse
  topic: keywords
subject: North Atlantic trade
  topic: keywords
subject: late Middle Ages
  topic: keywords
subject: early modern period
  topic: keywords
creator: Hans Christian Küchelmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 75
ending page: 92
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.257

Fish for grain? Archaeoentomological research and emerging patterns of exchange
type: item
description: A novel pathway for understanding exchange is via what might be termed historical autecology, in particular, trying to assess introductions and invasive insect species in the environments under investigation. Invertebrates can provide very detailed information on this front, as they inevitably accompany any trading or raiding activities, in ships, either in ballast, dunnage or goods, and overland in packing or commodity. Grain was widely shipped to the north from southern Baltic and North Sea ports, and archaeoentomological research in northern Norway and Iceland has demonstrated that exotic pests for these parts of the world, which rely on the warmth of the storerooms for their survival, arrived as part of the exchange process of fish or skins for grain; a range of other species were transported in dunnage and ballast. This paper discusses insect results and mechanisms for insect pest introductions from a range of sites relevant to the Hanseatic trade, including North Atlantic ones, to show the potential of this research and to provide a framework for future research.
subject: Part II: The commodities of trade
  topic: section
subject: fossil insects
  topic: keywords
subject: cereals
  topic: keywords
subject: stockfish trade
  topic: keywords
subject: North Atlantic
  topic: keywords
subject: ports
  topic: keywords
subject: shipwrecks
  topic: keywords
creator: Eva Panagiotakopulu
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 93
ending page: 105
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.258

Medieval and early modern ceramics in urban and rural Norway as evidence for trade within the Hanseatic world
type: item
description: In Norway, pottery from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries is always imported and mostly concentrated in the urban centres. The few finds of pottery from this period in a non-urban context can, however, shed light on the spreading of a continental or Hanseatic culture into the periphery of this country. This paper provides a broad overview of archaeological finds of pottery from Bergen and their implications as sources of cultural history. Furthermore, this paper presents various rural and underwater finds of late medieval and early modern pottery in different regions of Norway, along with a discussion of a possible interpretation of the finds as sources for Hanseatic history.
subject: Part II: The commodities of trade
  topic: section
subject: pottery
  topic: keywords
subject: stoneware
  topic: keywords
subject: Norway
  topic: keywords
subject: fish-trade
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanse
  topic: keywords
subject: urban vs rural
  topic: keywords
subject: consumption habits
  topic: keywords
creator: Volker Demuth
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 121
ending page: 132
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.263

Ships and their timber source as indicators of connections between regions
type: item
description: The precise dating and determination of the source of timbers in shipwrecks found around the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, through dendrochronology allows us to see connections between north and south, east and west throughout the region and to a high chronological precision. In this paper we take a look at results of recent analyses of timber from ships, and timber and barrel cargoes, to try to draw a chronological picture, from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, of links between regions, through transport in oak ships and trade of timber. Archaeological finds of oak from timber cargos in shipwrecks and fine art objects (painted panels and sculpture) show the extent to which timber was shipped from Hanseatic towns along the southern Baltic coast, to western and north-western Europe.
subject: Part II: The commodities of trade
  topic: section
subject: dendroprovenance
  topic: keywords
subject: high-precision chronology
  topic: keywords
subject: timber trade
  topic: keywords
subject: timber exploitation
  topic: keywords
creator: Aoife Daly
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 133
ending page: 143
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.264

Shetland and her German merchants, c. 1450–1710
type: item
description: From around 1450 to 1712 merchants from North German towns, especially Bremen and Hamburg, took ships to the Shetland Islands. They broke the rules of the Hanse with a view to buying fish from the Shetlanders, and gave them goods in exchange that they could not otherwise acquire. They played a vital part in Shetland’s economy, and their activities were regulated by local officials. From 1610, however, they received more and more attention from customs officers, who imposed heavy tolls and duties on them. Battered by those officials, and from the 1690s by privateers and the collapse of the Shetland economy, they hung on until the first decade of the new century. Disappearing, after 1707, they were replaced by enterprising Shetlanders as purchasers and exporters of the Shetlanders’ fish.
subject: Part III: The cultural impact of trade
  topic: section
subject: Shetland
  topic: keywords
subject: merchants
  topic: keywords
subject: Bremen
  topic: keywords
subject: Hamburg
  topic: keywords
subject: toll
  topic: keywords
subject: customs
  topic: keywords
creator: Brian Smith
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 147
ending page: 152
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.265

Low German influence on the Scandinavian languages in late medieval times – some comments on loan words, word-forming, syntactic structures and names
type: item
description: There was a strong influence from the Low German language on the languages in Scandinavia in late medieval times due to the considerable economical and cultural contact and interaction between northern Germany and the Scandinavian countries in this period, especially the Hanse trade. The vocabulary was especially affected, but also the grammatical structure and names. Some place-names from south-western Norway seem to reflect Low German influence. The loans from Low German are well integrated and adjusted to the structure of the Scandinavian languages.
subject: Part III: The cultural impact of trade
  topic: section
subject: loan words
  topic: keywords
subject: place names
  topic: keywords
subject: Hanse
  topic: keywords
subject: Scandinavian languages
  topic: keywords
subject: Middle Low German
  topic: keywords
subject: language contact
  topic: keywords
creator: Inge Særheim
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 153
ending page: 161
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.270

Cultural colonialism as a result of commercial activities: the linguistic perspective
type: item
description: The Hanse played not only a prominent economical role in the North Atlantic but the Germans also consistently influenced the culture of the people with whom they interacted and traded. Their presence led to a sort of cultural colonialism in Northern Europe, which, among others things, substantially shaped the Scandinavian languages. For several reasons, the Icelandic language was not influenced in the same way as the other Scandinavian languages; yet, one can find some traces of German in administrative language dating back to the Middle Ages. Furthermore, ‘cultural colonization’ by the Germans also certainly took place through the Reformation in Iceland. It was the German merchants who took the first seeds of the new faith with them to Iceland and marked their ‘conquest’ by building a Lutheran church. In this way, the merchants – like colonialists – claimed a space on foreign ground for themselves, where language played a very central role.
subject: Part III: The cultural impact of trade
  topic: section
subject: cultural colonialism
  topic: keywords
subject: inter-Scandinavian communication
  topic: keywords
subject: language contacts
  topic: keywords
subject: loanwords
  topic: keywords
subject: Reformation
  topic: keywords
subject: semi-communication
  topic: keywords
subject: strategies of communication
  topic: keywords
creator: Alessia Bauer
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 163
ending page: 174
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.271

The ships that headed north - an archaeological perspective
type: item
description: Information on ships that were used for the North Atlantic trade, mainly from Hamburg and Bremen, is scarce and, to date, has been completely derived from historical documents. This is problematic because the terms used for ship types do not represent technical definitions. As there is currently no direct archaeological evidence for the ships that headed north, finds of ships and ship timbers from other areas had been considered to offer a first glance into shipbuilding and the mechanisms of change in building methods. Two main building methods can be distinguished in the medieval period for sea-going and coastal craft: the bottom-based Bremen-type shipbuilding method and clinker shipbuilding methods. The new carvel shipbuilding method was established in the late fifteenth century in north-west Europe. The archaeological evidence shows that there was no immediate change over but that in many cases, there was instead a convergence to achieve flush carvel-built hulls. Considering the Bremen-type with its flat bottom and limited sailing abilities and the fact that the German merchants only started to participate in the North Atlantic trade in the late fifteenth century, the question arises of whether there were other technical issues that prevented them from this enterprise until they managed to gain the knowledge required to build ocean-going vessels that could withstand a journey of several weeks across the North Sea and Norwegian Sea.
subject: Part III: The cultural impact of trade
  topic: section
subject: ships
  topic: keywords
subject: shipping
  topic: keywords
subject: ship archaeology
  topic: keywords
subject: trade
  topic: keywords
subject: technology
  topic: keywords
subject: technology transfer
  topic: keywords
creator: Mike Belasus
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 175
ending page: 186
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.272

A fifteenth-century shipwreck with Scandinavian features from Bremen. Interpreting the Beluga ship in the context of late medieval clinker construction in northwestern Europe
type: item
description: While most of this volume’s contributions trace Hanseatic influences throughout the North Atlantic, this paper examines a possible counter-influence in the shape of a medieval shipwreck discovered in Bremen in 2007, the construction of which is reminiscent of the Scandinavian shipbuilding tradition. With its radially cleft planks, inlaid wool caulking and clinkerfastenings, the wreck displays a number of features that point typologically to a vernacular Scandinavian origin. However, the planks fall into two groups outside of Scandinavia: high quality wainscot planks cut in the Baltic region in the course of the fourteenth century, and a group of locally cut timber — arguably for repairs — dating from the second quarter of the fifteenth century. This period coincides with a peak of Baltic timber export, especially wainscot for shipbuilders. Hence, the wreck is discussed within the wider context of clinker-built wrecks from this period in general and wrecks built of Baltic oak in particular.
subject: Part III: The cultural impact of trade
  topic: section
subject: baltic timber
  topic: keywords
subject: timber trade
  topic: keywords
subject: timber-working
  topic: keywords
subject: ship building
  topic: keywords
subject: clinker
  topic: keywords
creator: Daniel Zwick
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 187
ending page: 206
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.273

Notau – the Hanseatic harbour at Avaldsnes, south-west Norway: written sources, maps and place-names
type: item
description: Written sources, mostly of German origin from the fifteenth century, mention Notau, a Hanseatic harbour somewhere in the south-western part of Norway. Ships from towns, including Lübeck, Danzig and Kampen, called here. Dutch maps from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries show that Notau was situated on the island of Karmøy in Rogaland county. The placename ‘Nottå’ has been used in modern times for locations at two islands belonging to the royal farm of Avaldsnes. Most probably one of these islands was called ‘Nautøy’ in the medieval period, becoming Notau in German. The written sources indicate that the Germans built houses in Notau, where the merchants are likely to have traded with the inhabitants of the region.
subject: Part IV: Case studies
  topic: section
subject: Hanse
  topic: keywords
subject: medieval harbour
  topic: keywords
subject: maritime maps
  topic: keywords
subject: trade
  topic: keywords
subject: piracy
  topic: keywords
subject: Karmøy
  topic: keywords
creator: Frode Fyllingsnes
rights: Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter
date: 2020-01-06
publication date: 2020-01-06
starting page: 209
ending page: 216
doi: 10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.274