Ett starkt och heligt landskap : Centralplats och kosmologi under järnåldern

Karl- Erik Nordström 2018. A strong and sacred Landscape. Central Places and Cosmology during the Iron Age This study intends to address a specific aspect of the landscape, not only as something that can be linked to economic, political and legal factors but also spiritual and cosmological. Much of these thoughts have been taken from certain studies of "the strong landscape" that shape the beliefs and identities. Such ethnoarchaeological approach has grown to a great extent in recent decades and is represented internationally by several authors from the 70s and 80s, who in their Bronze Age studies highlight the importance of contemporary world of imagination. Something that characterized much of the research tradition in the period after 1945 is building history and research around central places. The central site concept, which includes "a place of specific qualities", was not developed until the 1970s. One thing that can not be avoided in this case is the adaptation to the harsh climate and the environmental problems that develop during the Iron Age, which in many cases have been devastating but can also involve reorganization, better use of resources and a more centralized structure. The emerging economic, political, legal and religious centers that the central places make up can be seen as an expression of this. Here, spiritual and cosmological performances about landscapes, towns, farms and houses have also been developed. This aspect of the landscape as a cosmological unit I intend to study closer to the rich iron age community in Sundhede outside Hudiksvall. Here, a number of villages and smaller regions are grouped around a high-rise city center and here we also find outfields, which extract the substance that had an important significance during this time and also gave a spiritual cosmological significance, namely the iron. With this I hope to contribute to further knowledge of the role played by the landscape during the Iron Age, not least metaphysical