Martin Rundkvist

Martin Rundkvist
File:Swecon 2019 98 (cropped).jpg File:Swecon 2019 98 (cropped).jpg
Born	(1972-04-04) 4 April 1972
🏳️ Nationality	Swedish
💼 Occupation	Archaeologist

Martin Rundkvist (born 4 April 1972) is a Swedish archaeologist and associate professor at the University of Łódź in Poland. Rundkvist's research primarily concerns the Bronze, Iron, and Middle Ages of Scandinavia.

In 2003 and 2004 Rundkvist published a three-volume work, doubling as his dissertation, on Barshalder (sv; de), the largest prehistoric cemetery on the Swedish island Gotland. Subsequent works have analyzed the regional political geography of the Geats from the Late Roman Age to the Viking Age, artefact deposition patterns, and lifestyles of the Scandinavian elite during the Middle Ages.

Early life and education

Martin Rundkvist was born in on 4 April 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. Other than two early years spent in Connecticut, Rundkvist grew up in Stockholm—primarily in the suburbs Fisksätra and Saltsjöbaden. As a self-described "1980s teen", he played role-playing games, and spent time on online bulletin board systems. Rundkvist graduated from Stockholm University in 1992, and received his Ph.D. from the same institution in 2003.

Career

Bronze buckle from Barshalder

Rundkvist is an associate professor at the University of Łódź's Institute of Archaeology, which he joined in January 2020. Between has held archaeological positions since 1992; these were primarily research related, but also included contract work. This included positions as an honorary researcher at the University of Exeter from 2005 to 2008, as a project leader, field archaeologist, and artefact specialist in Värmdö Municipality from 2007 to 2008, and as a visiting researcher at the University of Chester from 2008 to 2015. Other work included as a senior lecturer at Linnaeus University, starting in 2012, and at Umeå University, starting in autumn 2013. In 2015 he began working as a collaborator at Tallinn University's Institute of History.

Rundkvist has had a variety of roles with different academic journals. From April 1999 until November 2018 he was the managing editor of the quarterly Fornvännen. Rundkvist wrote that he joined partly to gain "a better platform in academic archaeology than the shaky one I had as a PhD student", and stayed in part because "[t]he Royal Academy of Letters is a very good employer and takes care of its people"; he left, he added, over growing disillusionment with the labour market for Scandinavian humanities scholars. In 2020, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities awarded him the Academy's Antiquary Award in Silver for "for many years and valuable editorship for the Academy journal Fornvännen".

From 2006 until 2012 he served as the Scandinavian correspondent for Antiquity. He likewise served as a referee for Antiquity, as well as for the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, In Situ Archaeologica, Norwegian Archaeological Review, and the Estonian Journal of Archaeology. He has kept a blog since at least 2006, first titled "Salto Sobrius", and now known as "Aardvarchaeology". Rundkvist is also a member of the Internationales Sachsensymposion.

In 2016 Rundkvist participated in Curators of Sweden; for what he termed a "geeky, pun-ridden and bookish" week, he handled the country's official Twitter account, @Sweden.

Research

Rundkvist's research deals with the Bronze through Middle Ages in Scandinavia. His dissertation—Barshalder 1. A Cemetery In Grötlingbo and Fide Parishes, Gotland, Sweden, c. AD 1–1100—was published in book form in 2003, and catalogued the finds from Barshalder (sv; de), a Late Iron Age cemetery on the island Gotland. A companion volume, Barshalder 2, included essays placing the site in its wider context, and the following year Barshalder 3 detailed the Stone Age finds from the site. The topic was suggested by Jan Peder Lamm, who rediscovered the cemetery's existence while organizing the Swedish History Museum's stores, and declared that it would take "a foolish and stubborn person" to gather and publish the artefacts and notes from nearly two centures of excavation. The works were reviewed in Antiquity as "a good thorough contextual study", and noted for offering "an elegant explanation" for clustered Viking Age graves, which Rundkvist argued represented parents and their great-grandchildren rather than a nuclear family.

In 2011 Rundkvist published a fourth book, Mead-halls of the Eastern Geats. The work analyzed the regional political geography in the province Östergötland, and attempted to identify the region's "Beowulfian mead-halls", "the ostentatious manorial buildings where the Late Iron Age elite lived their lives and played their roles". Interviewed by Ancient History Encyclopedia, Rundkvist said he chose to focus on Östergötland "mainly because little had been done about 1st millennium CE elite culture there". Rundkvist ultimately identified nine sites as regional power centers, where mead halls may have stood, during parts of the Late Roman Period through Viking Age.

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13th-century walrus ivory chess bishop found at Stegeborg Castle

Rundkvist's fifth book, In the Landscape and Between Worlds: Bronze Age Deposition Sites Around Lakes Mälaren and Hjälmaren in Sweden, was published in 2015. The book analyzed sites around lakes Mälaren and Hjälmaren where Bronze Age metalwork and stone implements were found outside of burial and settlement contexts, and sought to identify traits that could be used to find new deposition sites. Given the lack of richness in finds in the area, and the general nature of Rundkvist's landscape descriptions—such as to look for where water "does something interesting"—several reviewers wrote that it would be difficult to translate Rundkvist's heuristic principles to the field, as intended, and one termed it a curate's egg. Nonetheless, reviewers including Svend Hansen (de) for Archäologische Informationen (de), and another for the European Journal of Archaeology, noted that the book was part of an emerging school of thought attempting to place deposited objects in the context of their landscape, and nearby sites. Writing in Landscapes, Mike Parker Pearson called it "a joy to read and a valuable regional synthesis for understanding the landscape context of votive deposition in the European Bronze Age".

Rundkvist published two further books in 2019 and 2020: At Home at the Castle, and its Swedish translation Hemma på borgen. Published by the Östergötland County Administrative Board, the work built on Rundkvist's two decades of fieldwork in the area and marked his entry into "the historically documented part of our province's past". Accordingly, one reviewer wrote that it "fluently combines archaeological evidence and historical textual sources". The work analyzed the lifestyles of those who lived in castles in Östergötland around 1200–1530 AD; modifying a common saying about World War I, Rundkvist termed such existence "decades of boredom punctuated by weeks of terror". Several reviewers noted difficulties in trying to bridge the gap between accessibility and academic thoroughness, though one termed it a "work of synthesis" that "puts into international reach some recent archaeological work on castles" in Östergötland. Another wrote that the book was full of "small but enlightening chapters" and that it "conducts researchers and other readers to an archaeological trip through the Swedish castles alongside the margins of the Baltic Sea".

Swedish Skeptics' Society

Rundkvist has been deeply active in the skeptical movement, and has chaired the Swedish Skeptics' Society and edited its quarterly Folkvett (sv). He jointed the organization in 1997, and immediately began writing for Folkvett. In 2002 he became an editor of the journal, and two years later he joined the Society's executive board. From 2011 to 2014, he served as its chair.

Selected publications

• Rundkvist, Martin (1998). Swedish Seminar Papers in Archaeology: 1991–1996 (PDF). Stockholm Archaeological Reports. 34. Stockholm: University of Stockholm. ISSN 1101-3087. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin, ed. (1999). Grave Matters: Eight Studies of First Millennium AD Burials in Crimea, England and Southern Scandinavia. Papers from a Session Held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fourth Annual Meeting in Goeteborg 1998. International Series. 781. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. ISBN 1-84171-001-6. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin (2003a). Barshalder 1. A Cemetery In Grötlingbo and Fide Parishes, Gotland, Sweden, c. AD 1–1100: Excavations and Finds 1826–1971 (Ph.D.). Stockholm Archaeological Reports. 40. Stockholm: Stockholm University. ISBN 91-631-3530-2.
• Rundkvist, Martin (2003b). Barshalder 2. Studies of Late Iron Age Gotland. Stockholm: University of Stockholm. ISBN 91-631-3732-1. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin; Lindqvist, Christian & Thorsberg, Karl (2004). Barshalder 3. Rojrhage In Grötlingbo: A Multi-Component Neolithic Shore Site on Gotland. Stockholm Archaeological Reports. 41. Stockholm: University of Stockholm. ISBN 91-631-4947-8. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin (2006). "Notes on Axboe's and Malmer's gold bracteate chronologies" (PDF). Fornvännen. 101 (5): 348–355. ISSN 0015-7813. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-01-30. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
• Rundkvist, Martin, ed. (2007). Scholarly Journals between the Past and the Future: The Fornvännen Centenary Round-Table Seminar, Stockholm 21 April 2006. Konferenser. 65. Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. ISBN 978-91-7402-368-8. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin & Williams, Howard (2008). "A Viking Boat Grave with Amber Gaming Pieces Excavated at Skamby, Östergötland, Sweden". Medieval Archaeology. Society for Medieval Archaeology. 52 (1): 69–102. doi:10.1179/174581708x335440.
• Rundkvist, Martin (2011). Mead-halls of the Eastern Geats: Elite Settlements and Political Geography AD 375-1000 in Östergötland, Sweden. Handlingar, Antikvariska serien. 49. Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. ISBN 978-91-7402-405-0. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin (2015). In the Landscape and Between Worlds: Bronze Age Deposition Sites Around Lakes Mälaren and Hjälmaren in Sweden. Archaeology and Environment. 29. Umeå: Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University. ISBN 978-91-7601-213-0. ISSN 0281-5877. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin (2015). Arkeologi är choklad, inte potatis (PDF). Stockholm: Self-published. ISBN 978-91-639-2057-8. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin (2019). At Home at the Castle: Lifestyles at the Medieval Strongholds of Östergötland, AD 1200–1530. Linköping: Östergötland County Administration. ISBN 978-91-7488-477-7. Search this book on
• Rundkvist, Martin (2020). Hemma på borgen. Livsstilar på Östergötlands medeltidsborgar år 1200-1530. Linköping: Östergötland County Administration. ISBN 978-91-985270-4-9. Search this book on

Bibliography

• Brown, Tony (September 2015). "Review of In the Landscape and Between Worlds". Journal of Wetland Archaeology. 15 (1): 149. doi:10.1080/14732971.2015.1112595.
• de Campos, Luciana (2019). "When the House is the Castle (Quando a Casa é o Castelo): Review of At Home at the Castle". Scania: Journal of Medieval Norse Studies. 2: 569–576.
• Frost, Lise (2016). "Review of In the Landscape and Between Worlds". KUML (in dansk). 65: 348–351.
• Haggrén, Georg (2019). "Review of At Home at the Castle". SKAS (in suomi). Society for Medieval Archaeology in Finland (2): 59–60. ISSN 1455-0334.
• Hall, Mark A. (2019). "Review of At Home at the Castle". Medieval Archaeology. Society for Medieval Archaeology. 63 (2): 474. doi:10.1080/00766097.2019.1670913.
• Hansen, Svend (2015). "Review of In the Landscape and Between Worlds". Archäologische Informationen (in Deutsch). 38: 505. doi:10.11588/ai.2015.1.26214.
• Hansson, Martin (2019). "Review of At Home at the Castle". Fornvännen. 114 (4): 270–272. ISSN 0015-7813.
• Lamm, Jan Peder; Axboe, Morten (1989). "Neues zu Brakteaten und Anhängern in Schweden". Frühmittelalterliche Studien (in Deutsch). Münster. 23: 453–477. doi:10.1515/9783110242218.453.
• Lucy, Sam J. (June 2004). "Review of Barshalder, vols. 1 & 2". Antiquity. 78 (300): 473–474. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00500854.
• Mullin, David (2016). "Review of In the Landscape and Between Worlds". European Journal of Archaeology. European Association of Archaeologists. 19 (1): 171–174. doi:10.1080/14619571.2016.1126492.
• Pearson, Mike Parker (November 2015). "Review of In the Landscape and Between Worlds". Landscapes. 19 (2): 193. doi:10.1179/1466203515Z.00000000050.

External links

• Former personal web site
• Aardvarchaeology blog

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