a coastal gravefield during winter.

on a latitude with long winters and short (though lovely) summers, this is what gravefields look like most of the year. their visual place in the landscape during winter is a little difficult to see if the graves are small in size. the snow was far above my knees. i think this stone ship is rockin' it though. it is very pretty. this particular stone ship is sweden's most northern. the final frontier! in the south of scandinavia the stone ships are a lot bigger.

a grave mound.

i came across this old photo on wikipedia. 

the excavation in 1874 of the western grave mound (it is around

1500 years old ) located in Uppsala, Sweden and i thought 

i should share, it's a pretty photo and i haven't seen it before. 

wintertime..while i'm waiting for adventures to start in late month of April, this blog is hibernating.

..but i'm reading several books at the same time and planning for 

lots of things this upcoming summer, i always need to have a few 

adventures waiting. April is just a few months away really. 

Above photo is the national gallery in London seen through my 

diana+ camera (accidently on pinhole setting).

*update: there will be a few winter posts, so don't worry, dear readers.

another weekend field trip! part 2, nature

an archaeologist looking for something..

Calluna vulgaris

another weekend field trip! part 1, grave field

the weather was in our favor, this weekend as well. We went out before lunch, Sofi and i, to the grave field of our dreams. The sun tried its hardest to shine on us. Sofi is in the pictures. the grave field is from 1500-500 B.C, which is bronze age. This field trip lasted 3 hours as well, just as last saturday's. We loved everything.

go big or go home, they seemed to say.

opened and plundered grave cairn with a stone cist in the center.

from prehistory with love.

obbola, part 1. crispy sunny sunday, perfect for a small field trip.

It should have been winter for a month now. But there is still autumn in this country, so, the archaeologist's in us saw a great opportunity to use this day for something really good. Sofi and I packed hot cocoa and went 10 km south of Umeå, out to the town of obbola by the coast to see the grave cairns that are there, which we haven't been to before. We started early in the day, when the sun was the brightest. it was lovely.

three iron age grave cairns.

While we were walking around in the forest, we saw some other ancient monuments. We spent 3 hours out there, mostly wandering around following some random trail, because at first we couldn't find the exact location of the grave field. ie. there was no good road signs for it. we kind of knew where it would be, but not how to get there, so we walked a little bit far too south of it. luckily the forest there at obbola has water on both sides, so there was no chance for us getting completely lost. we were actually really close to the site before we finally found it!

medieval seal hunter's house foundations. swe: tomtning


part 2 and 3 below

obbola, part 2, shingle beach with man-made pits.

obbola, part 3. nature.

quartzite

rock carvings at Norrfors, Umeå

this is just outside of umeå, and yet i have NOT been out here ever before, which is a little embarrassing since i'm born and raised in Umeå. i have no good explanation for this. but i decided this day was the day!

the post-glacial rebound dates these rock carvings to around 4000 years of age. mostly elks, some without internal lines but most have internal lines and dots. the other figures i saw were two boats, a funny looking humanfigure and a bird.

the woodbridge leading up to the carvings have little time notes on it for visitors to get a better perspective of the timeframe. It starts at world war II and goes backwards in time and at the end, by the rock carvings, the time line ends with mesopotamia and the egyptian pyramids which were buildt around the same time as the rock carvings were made. most people are familiar with the pyramids so it's easier to understand.

my sister and i spent an hour here, sitting, talking, having tea and trying to figure out the circumstances of the carvings. we didnt really come up with anything new. so no, no new ideas!

the river here is regulated so i couldnt get an idea of the waterflow, but there used to be water around this little rock.

my sister at Glösa, seen through holga camera.

My sister doesn't really know anything about archaeology or prehistory. Some people are interested, some are not, some just haven't gotten there just yet. So when she was following me around on my excursion, i talked about and explained all the sites to her that we visited. 

i assumed i was talking to only one ear but when i asked her later in the evening about the most important things from all the sites, she got 7 out of 10 questions right! and she was enthusiastic as well! 

questions such as where the closest hill forts to the mjälle hill fort are located, the age of the trapping pits, the difference between a storage building and a house, where certain rock carving motifs are in the country etc etc. i was really happy to see her interested when we were at the museum as well, especially when she saw the artifacts from places we had just visited, "aw so cool!" she said. 

 There is hope for humanity!