A medieval archaeologist excavating the mesolithic.

I've been studying Historical archaeology for 5 years at the Institute of archaeology in Lund. I became interested in building archaeology quite early and later on I wrote my master-thesis (magisteruppsats) on a medieval church called Borrie. I have also taken some theology, and last semester geology. I currently work as a guide at Dunkers in Helsingborg. I have excavated in Vallåkra and Uppåkra, and done building archaeological studies of Borrie church, Bonderup church and Malmöhus castle.
Before Rönneholm I never really cared about the stone age. Well, consider that opinion changed for life!
     The hunter-gatherer culture is extremely fascinating when you get to see it in the way Rönneholm peat bog displays it. I mean, to get a glimpse of an hours activity that happened 7000 years ago is really quite rare and when you hear the experts talk about their interpretations, you're hooked for life.
      My first two weeks started with surveys and fieldwalks. Talk about a good way to start an excavation. Who knew there was gonna be more than four bone-points with my name on them. The weeks after that it was most measuring with the total station, but it gives you great experience and it's a knowledge you must have as an archaeologist.
     Then finally I could start digging. For every pull with the trowel something really good can turn up, and that feeling keeps you going. Archaeologists love to find stuff. However, it was really interesting also to see the geology of the place. The bog was  from the beginning a lake, but with sediments and nutrients from the surroundings the natural step is that the lake overgrows into a bog. The second layer from the bottom reveals that the environment was very rich on nutrients, otherwise the algaegyttja wouldn't be there. After the gyttja the lake overgrows with reeds and sedge, and finally it's covered with Sphagnum
     The best things with Rönneholm was of course all the new people you got to meet, but also the hard work and the experience gained from working on a real excavation. And of course learning to identify flints, bone, arrowheads and wetstones! Here are 9 pictures from the last 5 weeks:

Using the rain and the "muk" to figure out how the ditches form.

Archaeology is all about working together

The best survey team I believe

"Let's take the post hole home with us!"

This is archaeology in a nut shell

Aerial photography

My best find

My best trench

The normal work place for an archaeologist

/Text and photos by Erik Johansson

The Rönneholm goldfever.

The archaeology at Rönneholm is very addictive. This was proven today when Thais, one of the Danes that left last week, just could´nt stay away. He returned today with Morten, one of the Danes from last year. They both suffered from the "Rönneholm goldfever", i could see it in their eyes.

The Rönneholm goldfever is a stronge urge to find more and more amazing finds in the bog, It´s a terrible disease without any cure. I think we all, more or less suffer from it. After Lunch four of the Swedish girls got a bad case of the "fever". To relieve them of their missery Arne set them out to survey the southern parts of the bog. They returned with a beautiful barbed leister bonepoint.

I think finding this leisterpoint just made things worse. Tonight Anna will dream of more bonepoints, and the first thing she´ll think about in the morning will be finding more bonepoints.

This is how we get enough elevation to take good planphotos.

The smell of bad eggs.

The Danes have gone back to their studies in Copenhagen. But before they left Theis managed to find another leisterpoint. This one was one of the best preserved, and in my opinion one of the most beautiful that I have seen. The cutmarks, that hint how they are made, are still visible on the leisterpoint.

What a beauty.

I must confess to a mistake that I made last week. The object that I thought was a quarts arrowhead with resin at the base was infact just a quarts debitage. It looked a bit like the quarts arrowheads that I found on Greenland, belonging to the palaeoeskimoic culture the Saqqaq. So I was fooled. But come to think about it, why would anyone use quarts in Skåne when we have so much high quality flint.

The deceptive quarts debitage.

Today Erik and I got to digg a deep trench. When we reached the reedpeat layer, the distinctive and charasteristic odour of bad eggs invaded our nostrils. When your down in a hole there is no real way to get away from the smell. Luckily for me I kind of like the smell, because to me the smell is the promise of great findbearing layers. When I smell "the bad eggs" I know chances are good that I migth stumble across something great. The promises of the smell came trough. I found the sharpened tip of a wooden stake in situ in the detritus layer.

Patrik with the wooden stake.

Clara, found a piece of resin on her very first day at Rönneholm.

I love digging deep holes.

A surprising visit.

Today we had a surprising visit from one of the peatbogs inhabitants. One frog, or perhaps toad ( I´m an archaeologist not a biologist) was taking a swim in one of our waterfilled trenches. It looked just as surprised as I did when it saw me.

Is it a frog or a toad?

The peat bog spirits are still with us. We have found some quite interesting artefacts that will help us in dating the site and some that leaves us standing as big question marks.

First of all we have found two villingebaek arrowheads wich dates back to the middle of the kongemose period, I think that´s about 8000 years ago. Theese are really good indicators of what period of the stone age we are excavating.

One of the Villingebaek arrowheads.

Before lunch Arne lifted a stone that we had been excavating around for about a weeks time. It was not just a stone it was a complete stone axe. I think he left it there for a couple of days, just to test us.

We have also found two fragments of flint edged bone points. Something that could be a quarts arrowhead with resin still attached at the base. This would be a bit of a odd thing, because we mostly find flint artefacts in Skåne. We have also found something that I´m pretty shure is somekind of a flint axe. I´m still trying to find out what kind of type it is. One leisterpoint and one bladescraper is two other nice finds that we have found this week.

Theis leisterpoint marked with a torn Danish flag.

The finds that really excite me this week are all the wooden stakes that we have found in situ. It does not take a lot of imagining to connect these into different structures such as huts.

The most puzzling find of the week must be the 3,5m long wooden artefact that we found a bit north of the main site. The wooden pole is cut in a way so that the wood fibres are not broken. First we thougth it was a bow, but then again it´s a bit too long and thick for a bow. So our next guess is a wooden pole used to manoeuvre a canoe or boat, or it could also be material to make a bow. A pike tooth was found next to the pole.

The wooden pole.

One authumn about 8000 years ago, this leaf fell of a willow tree into the water and sank to the bottom of the lake. Yesterday I dugg it up. It´s not an amazing archaeological find, butt it puts things in another perspective.

Farewells and hellos.

Our colleagues from around europe have all gone back home. Some to continue their studies and some to other excavations. All that remain are our nordic neighbours the Danes, they will stay with us for another week. So far  my life in archaeology has taken me into moments of, amazement, adventure, breathtaking beauty and friendship. So far the Rönneholm excavation has not been an exception. I know a lot of us will keep in touch long after this, and maybe even work together again.

Tomorrow the international crew will be replaced by some Swedish students. So new week, new people, new discoverys but the same old peat bog.

Another day of rain

Today I kept on working the totalstation, and the rain kept pouring down it´s missery over us. Everything gets so much more complicated when it rains. The ground is slippery, the boots get heavy from all the mudd, writing on papper gets a bit tricky, and the mood gets a bit low. Luckily this is counterbalanced by all the nice finds that the bog provides us with. Today we found two pieces of chewed resin. You could clearly see the thoothmarks in the resin. I dont think people chewed the resin as a chewing gum. It´s proparbly to make it softer and easier to work with. But it´s still a bit mindblowing to hold a piece of resin in the hand, with tooth marks made by somebody about 8000 years ago.

The entire excavation area is covered with nails stuck in the ground, marking finds for the measuring crew to pick up. We have so many finds that we eaven ran out of nails at one point, so people used sharpened twigs instead. The total station is at constant work occupying at least three persons at a time. One person on the reflector pole, one person picking up the finds, and one person sorting out the different finds categories and making notes. It´s almost like working on a assembley line in a factory, just a lot more interesting.

Today we found this sharpened stake.

Archaeologists in action.

It´s impossible to say no to those brown eyes, I just have to give him a piece of my cookie.

Black plastic bags and duct tape, now the car is ready for some muddy archaeologists.

Rainy start of the week.

It has been raining really heavily in Skåne (the south region of sweden), so it has been a bit wet on site. However this has not effected  the statistics of very cool things found.

As I mentioned earlier I´m finished with the surveying, so now I´m on the main site. So far I´ve been working the total station, wich I must confess is not one of my absolute favorite things to do on site. It´s not that I don´t appreciate or understand the importance of the total station, I do, and I want to be able to use it. It´s just that it keeps me from getting dirty and muddy.

To me digging holes and getting muddy is one of the most satisfying things in field archaeology. The dirtier I get the happier I am, maybe it´s something that stuck with me since childhood. I love digging deep trenches, unvealing and interpreting the diferent patterns that the stratigraphic layers make. Trying to interpret the stratigraphy is like solving a puzzle.

This is a really nice and deep trench with intresting stratigraphy, and it´s muddy to.

Nice and muddy.

Egis has a nice one man trench, with a big piece of a split logg in it.

Raising the tent, after the weekend.

He he nice and muddy.