Crisis, Sustainability, and Social Change: Some Central Sites in Scandinavia in the Late Iron Age.

Natural disasters may challenge the sustainability of societies. This Third Semester essay in Archaeology deals with some central sites in Scandinavia during the Migration Period (c. AD 400—600). The research question is in what way these centres were affected by the sudden climate change in AD 536—37, and the Justinian pest of AD 541. There are indications that certain places maintained or even increased their power and wealth after the crisis. It is suggested that this development partly was due to an availability of land deserted during the disasters, but also a consequence of political processes already in progress. – The author is a Swedish retired social anthropologist and international development worker. Keywords: Archaeology, Sustainability, Resilience, Natural disasters, Social change, Central sites, Scandinavia, Iron Age, Migration period, Disaster theory