The Agrarian History of Sweden Read online

  There is very little evidence of tools for spinning or weaving before AD 100, probably for the simple reason that distaffs were made from organic material such as wood or bone, and that fabric was generally woven on round looms without the loomweights that were to be such important evidence for later periods. From about AD 100 there was a rapid change across Scandinavia. In both settlements and graves there are finds of spindle-whorls of stone, fired clay, or bronze, which, along with loomweights of fired clay or soapstone, show that warp-weighted looms (or vertical-shaft looms) had become far more common. Cloth with round-loom selvages became ever more rare, matched by an increase in the amount of cloth with the warp-weighted loom’s characteristic selvages. While the two-shaft round loom was effective for plain-weave cloths, the warp-weighted loom, with multiple shafts or heddles, was much faster to use; something that was necessary for twill weaves.

  Shears were another innovation that began to appear as grave-goods around AD 100. With their help, sheep could be clipped to produce large, whole fleeces. Yet right up to the end of the Iron Age, plucking remained a very common method, especially for the long-staple wool needed for fine worsted yarns. It was also at this point that people began to make clothes from pieces clipped or cut out from the long, full loom widths of cloth woven on warp-weighted looms. Indeed, the improvement of sheep breeds and the changes to looms and weaving techniques, plus the introduction of shears, at the same time as leather clothing faded out–all are indications are that wool-growing and making clothes had taken on a far greater significance than before.15

  Changes in the landscape

  These technical changes were coterminous with rapid changes in the agrarian landscape. Judging by the palaeo-ecological evidence, the first five centuries AD were in many regions characterized by the opening up of large areas to grazing and by an increase in grain cultivation. Field systems and settlement remains in some areas permit a more detailed understanding of how the different types of land use acquired a fixed spatial organization.

  On the Baltic islands and in some of the central districts of the Mälaren valley and what is now the province of Östergötland, the extensive networks of collapsed stone walls document the division of the land into enclosed infields and outlying common grazings. On the islands of Gotland and Öland, and in the central parts of the provinces of Uppland and Östergötland, these walls are still to be found in the modern pastures and woodlands. On Gotland, stone-walled enclosures of this type directly overlie the ‘Celtic fields’, and have been interpreted as representing an intensification of farming. A more itinerant form of farming was replaced by the concentration of cultivation in small, intensively manured infields.16 On both Öland and Gotland this development ran parallel with the increased importance of sheep, and from the archaeo-zoological evidence we can see a clear trend towards specialized sheep farming on all the Baltic islands. The large proportion of sheep and goat bones in the material from Gotland and Öland from this period is in sharp contrast to the general northern European trend.17

  On Öland and in Uppland and Östergötland the remains bear witness to a spatial organization that was very different from the later territorial organization of the historical period. Stone walls were frequently used to enclose small patches of arable land as well as large areas suitable for haymaking. Meanwhile the pattern of cattle drove-ways gives some indication of the social organization of grazing, for they were generally shared by a group of single farms, while in some places the convergence of several drove-ways on one large common grazing area would seem to indicate that there was also an overarching structure.18

  Such agrarian landscapes are found in a close functional relationship to houses and farmsteads dated to the first five centuries AD. In a small number of cases, the direct stratigraphical dating of these structures indicates that the basic structure of dry-stone walls enclosing infields and meadows was in place by that time.19 The expansion of this new system of grazing organization, with its focus on the farmsteads, came as a sequel to the abandonment of many of the hearths that are thought to indicate out-wintering herds. This must be interpreted as an intensification of livestock farming. Similar large systems of enclosures may also have existed in other areas, but as wooden fences rather than stone walls. The wooden fences documented from this period are of two types: a type of wattle fence, which can often be found close to settlements; and slanstaket, a simple kind of post-and-rail fence, which because of the long gaps between poles is much more difficult to identify in archaeological excavations. The latter, which is far less demanding in labour, would have lent itself to large systems of enclosures.20 Meanwhile, in other areas of Sweden this expansion took other forms, so that western Sweden, for example, lacks clear evidence of an enclosure system of the infield and meadows type. Instead, we find a pattern of strip fields, which may have started to emerge in the first centuries AD, as a few dated fields in Västergötland show, while on the west coast in Halland these types of field generally do not appear until the beginning of the second millennium.21

  Figure 2.2 Collapsed stone walls in Särstad, Östergötland, AD 200–500. Note the long double rows of stone walls, which had been used as cattle paths or drove-ways. They bear witness to past processes of daily transport of livestock from common pastures to the farmsteads. Source: Widgren 1986.

  In the interior of southern Sweden, cultivation and stone-clearing continued in the large clearance-cairn fields, many of which had initially been cleared long before in the first millennium BC. In these areas no permanent boundaries were developed between different types of land use. It has been suggested that this might reflect a form of ley farming, by which some areas were used as arable, others as hay-meadows, and the remainder for grazing. While earlier interpretations of these field systems stressed that they were relicts of the last phase of hand-hoeing in a system of long-term fallow, there is now growing evidence that stone-clearing was instead driven by a system based on manuring with cattle manure and intensive tillage with wooden ards.22

  Sedentary farming spread successively northwards from central Sweden. In Hälsingland there are traces of sedentary agriculture from 400 BC, in Medelpad from AD 1–100, and in Ångermanland from AD 300–400. In Medelpad and Hälsingland in particular there are abandoned farm sites that make it possible to reconstruct the Iron Age farming landscape: some 160 abandoned farms bear witness to a settlement expansion that in character and chronology can be compared with what happened much further south in the province of Östergötland and on the islands of Gotland and Öland. Today we can find remains of permanent settlements and their associated grave monuments from that period even in peripheral and remote areas of Hälsingland, which, after their abandonment in the mid first millennium, were not permanently settled again until the medieval period or even later. The agrarian landscape in these provinces of southern Norrland was characterized by single farms, with a small cultivated area close to the farmyards, as can be seen from clearance cairns and other signs of cultivation, such as positive and negative lynchets. The small fields, perhaps amounting to little more than a hectare per farm, were intensively manured, while hay was mainly collected from natural wetlands.23

  Social organization

  From farm and village up to local and regional centres of power, and upwards to the level of the various small lands or kingdoms, it is evident that both agricultural intensification and technological development took place within the framework of a socially stratified society. In the rich material of settlement remains from the period AD 200–600, it is possible to discern a social hierarchy of settlements that spanned at least four broad classes.

  (i) Small households, perhaps made up of unfree or dependent persons. The archaeological evidence for such settlements is not overwhelming, but it does exist. Knut Odner’s analysis of a settlement under a rock shelter in Norway is the model for understanding such settlements. The most clear-cut examples in present-day Sweden are small settlements on the outlying grazing on Öland’s thi
nly vegetated limestone pavement, which have often been interpreted as the homes of minor herders, although indications of similar settlements are now regularly found in larger excavations.

  (ii) Medium-sized farms. Probably the largest category. With some 10–12 stalled cattle, they were far larger than the households of group (i). They are often grouped in a village-like structure together with one large farm of type (iii).

  (iii) Farmsteads that had long-houses with byres for 18–20 stalled cattle. They can be seen in the archaeological material with a distinctly larger number of houses, and frequently with a ceremonial hall. They would have been able to house a large number of people, possibly including slaves or other types of dependant labourer. Some of these settlements were fortified manors surrounded by walls of stone or earth, possibly with palisades.

  (iv) ‘Chieftain’ farms, which in their finds of hoards, gold, and imported goods differ from other settlements. They also often have finds that indicate that a variety of artisanal products were made there. Uppåkra in Skåne, Slöinge in Halland, and Helgö in Uppland are examples of such central places. To date no very large byres have been found in such settlements; an indication that they did not have their own large-scale agricultural production, but instead were dependent on underlying farms and on exchange.

  This clear social division is most evident towards the end of the expansion period, in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. The fortified manors and farms of type (iii) may have formed the centres of local estates, while the settlements of type (iv) were centres for cults, exchange, and military organization, serving a larger region. The extremely rich, central settlements often emerged towards the end of this expansion period, and, in contrast to many of the smaller farms, went on to survive the decline in the fifth to sixth centuries, thus displaying settlement continuity throughout the late Iron Age.24

  Sixth-century crisis and restructuring

  In the fifth and sixth centuries AD there are many signs of radical changes to settlements and landscapes. Some 1,800 house-foundations on Gotland and 1,500 on Öland, clearly visible above ground, bear witness to the extent of the abandonment. Although the evidence is not as clear (far fewer house remains are visible above ground), the same seems to have occurred at settlements with stone-walled enclosures in Östergötland and Uppland. In the 1950s the evidence was taken by Mårten Stenberger to mean ‘an almost universal end to occupation’. Based on far more detailed investigations of the remains of the farmed landscape, Dan Carlsson later argued that there was a much stronger degree of continuity at the settlements, and that the apparent discontinuity could partly be explained by a change in building techniques.25 Yet even if the element of continuity was stronger than was assumed in the 1950s, the remnants of several single farmsteads bear witness to a decline in the number of settlements, or at least a concentration of settlements. Certainly, a definite lessening of grazing pressure can be seen in the pollen diagrams. Yet it is not possible to conclude that all areas were hit equally: it is in the coastal provinces in the east, from Blekinge in the south to Medelpad in the north, that the signs of decline are most evident. In the western part of Sweden there are fewer signs of a decline in grazing pressure. Moreover, there are clear regional differences within the eastern zone, where in the midst of the general decline there are indications of an expansion of human influence on the vegetation in two areas: central Uppland and the province of Ångermanland. In Uppland this expansion is directly connected to the growth of a new centre of power at Old Uppsala. The expansion in Ångermanland represents a shift northwards from the previously intensively settled areas in the adjacent provinces of Medelpad and Hälsingland. Developments in the fifth and sixth centuries AD thus cannot simply be seen as a crisis that struck all parts of the country with the same force, nor yet as a general restructuring of settlements and farming systems.

  Instead, to understand the decline we must also have some idea of the forces that created the preceding expansion. The early Iron Age political and economic organization must have had a strong capacity to create economic growth and settlement expansion. The abundant and rich archaeological material from the first five centuries AD on the islands of Öland and Gotland, in eastern central Sweden, and along the southern part of the Norrland coast must be viewed in the light of the intensive exploitation of the heartlands of various petty kingdoms. This expansive period is reflected in both the frequency of archaeological finds and the pollen diagrams. The settlement intensification and the increased investments in the land in the form of enclosure systems meant that several earlier innovations–cattle byres, hay-meadows, and manured fields–were reordered in a new spatial pattern; a pattern motivated by the demands of the specialized rearing of cattle and sheep. The enclosures and meadows bear witness to an intensively exploited landscape–possibly even exploited beyond the bounds of the sustainable. Unsurprisingly, it is in these central areas that the signs of change have been best preserved in the landscape. These areas–on the outer fringes of Roman influence–were probably drawn into international exchange systems, and part of their agrarian expansion may have been connected to the surplus production of wool and hides. The development of the agrarian landscape in the Swedish area cannot be seen in isolation from the broader political and economic changes in northern Europe.

  It was in those areas that had previously seen the greatest expansion and had become centres of political and economic development that the decline was most sharp: Öland, Gotland, Östergötland, and Hälsingland. The most probable explanation for the symptoms of crisis and regional restructuring in the middle of the first millennium AD is that they represent shifts in the balance of power within the Scandinavian area that in turn influenced surplus production and settlement density.

  Late Iron Age expansion, AD 700–1000

  For the late Iron Age (AD 550–1000) the field evidence from farming landscapes is much less clear than in the periods that preceded the crisis and restructuring of the sixth century AD. The relation between arable and pasture remained much the same, and there were no evident technological changes connected with the ensuing restructuring. It is only with the onset of the Viking Age settlement expansion that we can document any significant changes, and it is therefore not until this expansion itself turned into a decline during the late medieval agrarian crisis that abandoned fields and settlements can again be used to reconstruct a farming landscape. However, the comparative paucity of field evidence for the late Iron Age can in some respects be used as a key to understanding the development of the agrarian landscape.

  First, late Iron Age cultivation did not cover the same large areas as before. Cultivation and settlement became more sedentary and concentrated, and changes in settlement location and fields became less common. Second, the sheer abundance of the evidence from the earlier periods reflects the fact that house foundations (Öland and Gotland) and enclosures (Öland, Gotland, Östergötland, and Uppland) were constructed in stone. During the late Iron Age there were still stone walls erected, but better axes meant that both houses and fences could largely be constructed in wood. Third, the late Iron Age did not witness sweeping changes similar to those of the first centuries of the Christian era, and it was not until the early medieval period (which corresponds to the European High Middle Ages) that there was a radical reorganization of agriculture based on new field systems adjusted to two-course or three-course rotations.

  However, in some parts of Sweden–Skåne, the interior of southern Sweden, and Uppland and Östergötland–it is possible to draw some conclusions on the development of the agrarian landscape in the late Iron Age.

  Figure 2.3 Settlement development in an area in interior southern Sweden as indicated by burial sites (early and late Iron Age) and historically recorded settlements (medieval period). Source: Gren 2003.

  Changes in the landscape

  In the southernmost province of Skåne a clear period of change is documented from the eighth century AD. Skåne, unlike much of the rest of Sw
eden, was by then already a village landscape, and the villages of the late Iron Age were often located close to or on the same sites as the later medieval villages. The common grazings became much more open, to the point of being almost treeless. No large woodlands remained, and the last few alder carrs had been turned into hay-meadows. At the same time, rye cultivation increased. Detailed palaeo-ecological analyses show that rye was sown as an autumn crop, suggesting that the three-course rotation known in the medieval period may already have been established: autumn rye–barley–fallow or barley–autumn rye–fallow.26

  In the late Iron Age the hitherto extensively cultivated clearance-cairn fields in the southern Swedish uplands successively fell out of use. Fewer new cairns were established, and in some areas heather invaded the previously open mosaic of woodlands, grassland, and arable fields. Change was not uniform, for in some areas the clearance-cairn fields were abandoned as early as the third century AD; in others they were worked until the eighth century AD, while some continued in use well into the medieval period. The broad trend is mirrored in the distribution of burial monuments, which indicates that, with time, settlements and cultivation were concentrated in fewer areas, with better soils.