A study of the representativity of the Swedish ceramics analyses published in The Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database (SEAD)

This article is taking a critical view on the representativity of Swedish archaeometrical analyses of ceramics affected by the varying conditions under which this work has been undertaken during almost 50 years. The scrutiny has been done as part of the project VISEAD in order to prepare the ceramics data being made available in the Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database (SEAD). The result shows that the analytical coverage varies significantly from good to poor in different parts of Sweden and the possible reasons are discussed. Furthermore, this review has made it clear that a detailed, complete overview of the archaeological sites is quite difficult to establish for some parts of Sweden. Thus, the information stored in the open database SEAD will not only serve to make so far disparate archaeometric data accessible but will also help to complement the Swedish heritage overview