Excavation at Ottenby Kungsgård 2004

Here are a few pictures from the excavation at Ottenby Kungsgård (the royal manor Ottenby) 2004 and of a few of the finds.

These finds are dated to the Pitted ware culture, a late neolithic hunter-gatherer culture in Scandinavia, dated to ca 3200 BC- ca 2300 BC. Most sites are found along the coasts of Svealand, Götaland, Åland, north-eastern Denmark and southern Norway. The culture has been named after the ornamentation of its pottery.

The report on the excavation is available as an pdf-file here (in Swedish).

A few pictures of the excavtaion area. As you can see the weather was great, at least some of the days.

In this picture you can see the main area of the 2004 excavtions.

  This area is just south of the previous, here we dug a number of test pits in an attempt to locate the outer boundaries of the settlement.

This picture is taken from the south and shows the main excavation area, in the background are the stables belonging to the royal manor of Ottenby.

A few pictures of pitted ware pottery chards

A few pictures of seal bones

A seal femur

A seal tooth

A seal mandible

Arcaeology is much more than just digging

 

Cows can be something of a nuisance as they are very curious.

 On the other hand sometimes one has to dig deep do to find the information one seeks, in this case ca 1,5 meter.

And at the end of the day the archaeologist picks his tools up and goes home.

Magnus Reuterdahl