Comparing the Past and the Timeless: Landscape Use, Change, and Affordance in Central Blekinge, Sweden, Between the Iron Age and the Medieval Period

Abstract: Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered an Iron Age temple house in Vång providing new context to the centrality of Iron Age central Blekinge in Sweden, as well as its development into the Medieval period. This thesis aims to examine how that development unfolded using the lens of affordance theory combined with a GIS assisted source pluralistic analysis. Comparing Iron Age monuments with historical settlements and structures generates an understanding of central Blekinges landscape as largely continuous through epochs. The start of the medieval age heralds a new ideology and subsequent new meanings to the landscape. Some environmental features with established meaningfulness retain their meaningfulness, but often in a christianized form while other places lose their previous importance. Investigating the applicability of affordance theory on a macro scale landscape analysis constitutes an additional aim of this paper. Combined with datasets that correspond with visual potential, Affordance theory is proven suitable for large scale pattern detection. Flaws are identified in affordance theory’s inherent determinism, creating potential inability to interpret anomalies.