The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental archaeology invites you to a seminar with Mattias Sjölander. Mid-tern PhD seminar, "Blinded by the light: Material flow patterns and environmental change in Northern Sweden".
Abstract:
Current understanding about the development of settlement and mobility during Mesolithic – Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Sweden has reached a general acceptance among archaeologists. The research largely rests on the theoretical model for economic subsistence among hunter-gatherers by Clark (1975), as well as Binford’s model for describing settlement system variability. Previous studies in Northern Sweden have generated a lot of valuable information, but the resulting models are at the same time simplified depictions of human mobility. New analytical methods and more powerful and flexible Geographic Information Systems enable us to develop the previous models to depict more dynamic landscape change and mobility.
This project will produce a regional environmental reconstruction for Northern Sweden by compiling and digitizing pollen studies. The vegetational development will be expanded upon with climate and geological data in an effort to describe a more dynamic landscape development. Provenance data for quartz and quartzite, gathered using NIR – spectroscopy, will then be studied against the resulting environmental model in an effort to discuss material flow patterns as a means of studying human mobility.
Commentator: Prof. Hans Peter Blankholm, Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology, Tromso University, Norway (who will hold a seminar the same afternoon).
The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental Archaeology presents and discusses current research in archaeology and environmental archaeology.
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