The Power of Case Studies. Interpretation of a Late-Bronze-Age Settlement in Central Sweden

AbstractThis paper investigates two phases {1200-1000 BC and 800-700 BC of the Bronze-Age settlement at Apalle in central Sweden, concentrating on the symbolism of the interior of houses, cooking stones, and middens. Middens of fire<racked stones and refuse were similar to tombs in the earlier phase, their contents suggest a notion of death that included the non-human. In the early phase the middens were collectively created and central to the settlement, in the later they were more numerous but smaller, on the edges of the settlement, and more 'private'. The houses became more open in the later phase, with fewer and less marked interior boundaries. Hearths in the houses became more important, house construction included 'dead' material from the middens. The changes are interpreted as reflecting growing separation between households but increasing openness within the household, and an increasing privatisation of the household's external concerns.The paper also offers some theoretical thoughts on the natur...