Eketorp

Fortification and Settlement on Öland/Sweden
The Monument

Translated by Nils Stedt

Kaj Borg, Ulf Näsman & Erik Wegraeus

215 Blz., ISBN 91 7402 003 X     
Almqvist & Wiksell International Stockholm, 1976     


Eketorp Fortification and Settlement on Öland/Sweden presents the results of the archaeological investigations of the Eketorp ring-fort, which took place in the summers of 1964-1974 and were directed by late Mårten Stenberger. The research project, one of the biggest and most consistently executed in Scandinavia, was made possible with grants from, above all, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond).

This volume - The Monument
Is the first of six planned. It contains a survey of the unique ring-forts on Öland, a glimpse of the life of an archaeological expedition, and a general introduction to Eketorp and its settlements.
All ring-walls and gateways are minutely decribed. In comprehensive articles the planning and development of the three settlements are described and analysed. The medieval smithies are treated in a separate chapter and a paper on the stratigraphy of Eketorp concludes the volume.
Volumes on the Iron Age houses and the rich artefact material are now in preparation. Other articles in the same series will place Eketorp in its archaeological and historical North-European context. The big osteological material will be published in a separate volume.

The ancient fortified village of Eketorp is situated in Gräsgård parish on southern Öland and is the southernmost of the 19 ring-forts on the island.
Inside a stout ring-wall, three different settlement phases, Eketorp-I, -II and -III, have been uncovered, one on top of the other. The first fortification, Eketorp-I, from the Late Roman Iron Age, ca. 300-400 A.D., was directly transformed to the bigger Eketorp-II, existing in the Germanic Iron Age, ca. 400-700 A.D. After being abandoned for some centuries the site was again inhabited in the Late Viking Age. This late phase in the history of the ring-fort, Eketorp-III, flourished in the Early Medieval Period and is dated to ca. 1000-1300 A.D. Only the collapsed ring-wall reminded later visitors of the lost significance of the Eketorp ring-fort.
The archaeological investigation has made possible a thorough study of the social and economic development of a society during nearly a thousand years and scientific investigations illuminate the environmental conditions on southern Öland during the Iron Age and Early Medieval Period.


(The above text comes from the back of the book)     



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