 My name is Anna Lagerstätt and this is Stefan Gustafsson and we work with rescue archaeology in Sweden in a private farm, Akeligekonsult, and today we will talk about the establishment of the town in shopping in central Sweden during the late 11th century. In this place, like previous indications of being a central place in the surrounding landscape, the written sources that describe this process have been inadequate and previous archaeological investigations in this town have not been able to capture this process. However, recent and extensive archaeological excavations in nature have thus resulted in new perspectives on the early history and urbanization of the town. And we want to investigate on a micro level how these remains can provide new perspectives on the early history of the European shopping. So our presentation today will consist of the following parts. We will talk about the distribution of central places in the surrounding landscape and there will be a short presentation of the excavation itself. And then we will present the history of the place before the town and also present the early phases of the urban settlements. And we will conclude this on food capture in a dual town. So, we are shopping situated by the lake Nalheim in eastern Sweden and today is a very small town ranked number 42 in Sweden. However, during the Middle Ages, this town has a much more prominent position in the Swedish Kingdom. For example, it was a very important place for the church of the province of Upland and there are also later several meetings between the king and the people situated in the town. As a result of the shore displacement in this area, the town lost its connection to the water and it was not longer possible to transport goods by boats. This is thought to be the main course of the decline of the city during the late Middle Ages. So, this is the province of Upland in eastern Sweden and the former, this province was also divided into three or four original provinces, Upland and E& shopping was the central place in one of these provinces. In the town was located on the Esker, just on the spot where the Esker met the Bay of the Lake Nalheim and these locations had been considered to be the main course of the foundation of the town in this place and this has been suggested that the town was proceeded by a pre-medieval marketplace even though there are no concrete evidence for this fact in the material. The town was also situated on the border between two administrative divisions called Haradar or earlier also called hundreds and it's the location left on the border. This is very common fact for Swedish towns and in the landscape around E& shopping you can find several places with the indication of high social status of certain functions. On this map we can see the red dots, large barry mounds. Many of these have special names as for example the Grable King Harad and the Yellow Swords as in both villages with the place named Husby and these are thought to be indicated places with central function connected to the kingdom during the 11th and 12th century and the black cross it's early stone charges and they can probably be connected to the wealthy magnet farms in this area which has the resources to build these expensive churches and then you add the prehistoric sanitarists in this picture and we can see that confirms the picture of central areas in this region and E& shopping here is situated just between these central places. There are for example no large barry mounds in this old concentration of prehistoric cemeteries close to E& shopping and we would like to suggest that the town was founded in a new place in the social landscape in a place between several magnet farms and on the border between two historical districts. So we will now take a closer look at E& shopping and our excavation in the town and this map shows the city plan before 1800 and we can see there are three medieval churches in the north part of the city surrounded by stones with ironic inscriptions but these are moved here from other places in the landscape and two of the churches have been dated to the late 12th century and the red dots marks early datings, candle datings from the 12th century and the red square in the middle here marks an early grapevine probably from the 11th century and we can see the excavated area in the eastern part of the city and next picture we have the shoreline we can see that the excavated area is close connected to the water and first of the city is an island with a monastery dating to the second century and many on the structure of this map the street so on has been shown to be have relevance also for medieval conditions in E& shopping if we zoom into this area and add the structures we can see that the structure that we find both of these patterns from the historical map now I'll take some short facts about the exhibition we excavated the excavated area covered more than 3000 square meters and the period is from the second half of the 11th century to the second half of the 14th century the structures that we excavated was medieval houses, cobblestone streets, wooden fences, wells and so on and the finds consisted of house, house, objects like ceramics, wooden balls etc personal items like pumps or buckles and waste products from different crops in the next picture we can see some examples of the structure like steelstones houses, log houses, cobblestone streets, wooden objects, some short facts about the location of E& shopping it was established in a landscape with pastures and forms based on a botanical evidence we can see that the vegetation was characterized by an open grassland with varying degrees of moisture in addition to the meadow plants there were some trees and bushes and along the shoreline we had some trees and villas as well this was a very stable plant community and the land use didn't cause any significant erosions when in shopping grow and expand this will change with floating and erosion as a result of the urban activities this problem will remain throughout the Middle Ages the residents utilized different strategies to make the shoreline accessible to various activities such as fishing, trade and communication this work were made your investments in the town which provides perspective on the potential resources that the town's elite had to manage so this is the first phase of the urban settlement and we can see that there are now plots marked by ditches and we have three different plots here with long houses and they consisted both with living areas and buyer for small cattle on the same roof and this architecture style has obvious influences from the rural areas and the households here consisted of a whole family with women and children we can also see specialized craft and it was conducted in the closed area and this picture is taken to the plots next here this is your idea of the settlement quite rural parents so next phase the first half of the 12th century there is an expansion in the urban settlement in this area and the plots are straightened out and becomes it becomes a more regulated city plan the town yard lies in pairs divided by a narrow passage the similar patterns is known from other swedish towns as such as Siktuna and we can see here on both sides with all of the former shoreline so we reconstruct you know this next so we would like to suggest that the first urban settlement is built in relation to an early market street this map you can see the plus it's related to this market street in a straight angle and the distance between the settlement and the churches suggests that the location of the churches are secondary in relation to the first urban settlements now food culture what you eat depends on who we are and which social group you are belonging to you can say that the type and degree of social community the terms what you put on the dinner table in this context the town can be seen as a concept of social belonging and you get an urban food identity as soon as you have a material urbanity food culture is always identification which may it's quite reasonable to assume that you eat in a similar way that you want to identify with it has ever been important that you didn't eat about your own social group that could have been seen as an expression of claims that you not were entitled to in archipelago studies of food culture you must use several source materials that you see here you need a plant material plant macrophosals pottery booms and all other objects in this context even how the how the food was prepared are important the study of changes in food consumption over time must also be seen in the context of the emergence of an urban identity okay and some conclusions oh we're talking conclusions yes ear shopping at the time of the foundation of ear shopping the swedish crown had a very weak position with regenerally limited power and it's not likely that town was founded by the king later during the 12th century the town was a very important place for the church in the province of land however the church establishment seemed to have been preceded by the laying out of regular urban settlement with long narrow plots really related to market street and we suggest that this earliest urbanization of ear shopping was a result of need for the marketplace for a local elite and we also want to emphasize the importance of identifying several periods and process of urbanization thus not seeing urbanization is the liner process clearly urbanization may differ from later development developments with different groups that driving change thank you