Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
carved on rocks or bronze objects enable us to imagine how these vessels might
have looked (Kaul
1998
).
Most of the known rock carvings are from central Sweden, i.e. an area that expe-
rienced a strong isostatic uplift of the land. The landscape at the time when the rock
carvings were made was therefore completely different from that of today. This
again became obvious when a sea-level curve for the coast of Bohuslän in western
Sweden was calculated recently by T. Påsse (
2003
) and used to generate a shore-
displacement model (Ling
2004
). These investigations showed that the clay-soil
plains surrounding some of the well-known Bronze Age rock art sites in the coastal
area around Gothenburg could not have been dry land - as had been assumed before
the study - but were, in fact, at the bottom of the sea in shallow bays. Consequently,
it is hypothesized that at least some of the ship carvings were originally done on or
near the contemporary shore, which itself could have been a ritual landscape with
special locations for cult activities.
The growing social, economic and military importance of seafaring from the first
millennium AD can easily be studied from the many coastal sites along the Baltic
rim. As archaeological investigations - mostly from the last three decades - have
shown, maritime routes were constantly developed during that period, e.g. by the
establishment of shipping barriers and channels that gave control over the waterways
(Nørgård Jørgensen
2003
).
The increasing importance of the long-distance water-borne transportation of
wares and goods that were not available locally can also be determined from the
establishment of beach markets, landing places and shipyards that were occupied
on a seasonal basis (Ulriksen
1998
,
2004
). Most of these sites have been identified
since the 1990s in Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the course of extensive surveys
based on the analysis of the coastal landscape from a seaman's perspective. This new
approach is also being used to an increasing degree for maritime-landscape research
in Germany (Dobat
2003
) and the eastern Baltic states (Mägi
2004
,Ilves
2004
).
Since the eighth century AD, so-called trading centres were established in many
places along the Baltic coast (Fig.
15.15
). They were established by the political
authorities in the respective region or territory to consolidate long-distance trade
and the local exchange of goods as well as to organize local handicraft produc-
tion (Callmer
1994
, Jöns
2008
). These sites were always located in bays or on the
banks of rivers to take advantage of a topographically well-protected position with
direct access to the sea so that boats and ships could be loaded and unloaded safely
(Crumlin-Pedersen
1999
). At some of the trading centres, piers, landing bridges and
other harbour facilities were built to permit the direct unloading of high-draft ships
that could not be pulled onto the beach (Crumlin-Pedersen
1997
). The remains of
these structures are a source of information about the local sea level that, when they
are well preserved and have been properly excavated and recorded, can be used
as sea-level index points - or at least give an indication of the local sea level, as
shown by the following examples of recently investigated sites at Haithabu and Groß
Strömkendorf in the south-western part of the Baltic (Germany) and from Birka in
Lake Mälaren (Sweden).
