Positioning the Bronze Age in Social Theory and Research Context

Abstract: The thesis investigates the theoretical background and the research context within which interpretations of the Nordic Bronze Age have been formed in Scandinavian archaeology. A theoretical analysis that emphasises theories of social practice and phenomenological perspectives is presented. The purpose of the analysis is to explore theories of social practice as tools for grasping the dynamic relations between the Bronze Age material culture, landscape and social reproduction. Moreover, a detailed discussion of the contemporary research context of Scandinavian Bronze Age archaeology is presented. The partly divergent research histories of landscape archaeology and social archaeology are discussed, with focus on what different narratives of the Bronze Age these archaeological perspectives have formed. Further, the political context of contemporary Bronze Age research is discussed in a European perspective. Here, the focus lies on what consequences the promotion of a common European archaeological heritage may have on the production of prehistory, and especially of the European Bronze Age. The thesis also includes a study of a local Bronze Age landscape in the Stora Köpinge parish, south-eastern Scania. The case study focuses on the social role of longhouses from the Late Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age. This part explores how the local Bronze Age landscape was continuously recreated through people’s choices of settlement-sites, movement through the near surroundings and localisation of burials and monumental constructions, as well as special depositions.