Excavations in the Black Earth 1990-1995. Stratigraphy. Vol. 2. Part Three: The Later Part of the Birka Period. Part Four: The Finds

The Birka excavation has played a major part in the development of excavation techniques, digital documentation, and stratigraphic analysis. The two volumes on stratigraphy, of which this is the last, demonstrate the need for careful excavation techniques and well-executed field documentation when fndings are subsequently revised and analysed to enlarge our knowledge of life in the past. The work has already generated several dissertations and articles by people who worked on the project. With the stratigraphy now completed, many chronological questions about the Viking Age finds will be given new fuel. Ever since the time of Stolpe and Montelius, the Birka finds have always played a major role in periodization. The lack of an absolute timescale, however, has been troubling. The new Birka stratigraphy will provide important evidence on this issue. A large part of this is due to the finds of moulds, which make it possible to determine which artefact variants were produced in the bronze caster’s workshop in the earlier parts of the layer sequence. Birka is not just a matter of the emergence of towns and urban life. The interaction between the town and its hinterland is at least as important. We can now obtain a better view of Birka in relation to its immediate surroundings in the Mälaren area, to the larger Bothnian resource area, and to international contacts with Western Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.