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The Landscape of a Swedish Boat-Grave Cemetery

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1179/lan.2010.11.1.1

2040-8153

Howard Williams, Martin Rundkvist, Arne Danielsson,

Historical and Archaeological Studies

AbstractThe paper integrates topographical and experiential approaches to the mortuary landscape of a Viking period boat inhumation-grave excavated in 2005 within a cemetery at Skamby, Kuddby parish, Östergötland province, Sweden. We argue that the landscape context was integral to the performance of the funerary ceremonies and the subsequent monumental presence of the dead in the landscape. We offer a way to move beyond monocausal explanations for burial location based on single-scale analyses. Instead, we suggest that boat-inhumation at Skamby was a commemorative strategy that operated on multiple scales and drew its significance from multiple landscape attributes.