Period: Late Iron Age (c. 400-1050 AD)
Project title: Kring hus och Härd: Kulturlagrens kemi som dokument över forntidsmänniskans näringsfång
Researcher: Björn Hjulström, Stockholm Universitet, Sverige
E-mail: bjorn.hjulstrom(at)arklab.su.se
Year: 2005
Abstract:
The aim of this experiment was to gain insight into the activities in the Iron Age houses through analysis of soil samples from the floors of the Iron Age houses. The reconstructed Iron Age houses at Lejre Experimental Centre were well suited to this type of experiment as the houses are in actual use every summer. The experiment at Lejre forms a part of a larger project that includes analyses of soil samples from archaeological excavations of Iron Age houses in Sweden.
Two types of analyses - geochemical analysis and lipid analysis - were carried out on soil samples from different areas of the floor of one of the reconstructed Iron Age houses.
The geochemical analysis enabled identification of the deliminations between the different activitites that had been carried out in the house. Yet this type of analysis did not provide any unambiguous indication of the specific nature of the activitites that had taken place in each area.
As lipids, i.e. fats, are found in large quantities in foodstuffs, the presumption was that an analysis of lipids would help the researchers discover and deliminate the areas in the Iron Age house that had been used for food handling and storage.
The conclusion was that the combination of the two types of analyses did in fact enable identication of the activities in all the areas of the Iron Age house except the smithy. It was possible by means of lipid analysis to identify the stable area and the passage of the animals through the main door, just as it was possible to identify the general dwelling area.
While archaeological sketches of the fitting up of the Iron Age houses have traditionally consisted of a few dots with large gaps in between, this experimental project has shown that lipid analysis may contribute to filling these gaps with culture-historically important information.