The Chronology of Weapons from the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Mainland Sweden and Öland

Abstract

The Pre-Roman Iron Age is one of the better known and most excavated periods of the Iron Age in many parts of Sweden. Excavations of large cemeteries have yielded a vast quantity of material. This is especially true for the later Pre-Roman Iron Age. Despite this, no one has bothered to erect a chronological system. Since the 1950s only a few large compilations of Pre-Roman grave material, excavations reports and minor articles with the focus on chronological questions have been published. This article is an attempt to establish a chronology for the weapons from the Pre-Roman Iron Age, especially for the later part of the period. Most of the finds come from graves, but some of the material is from deposits. The article is part of a Ph.D. project on weapons from the Early Iron Age from the Swedish mainland. The discussion on the material from Öland is to a large extent based on published material and not first-hand observation.