Examining the archaeological material of the modern period, over a period of the last 500 years, this open access book presents a series of case studies that challenges the fallacy of Nordic egalitarianism. The widening gap between rich and poor Western countries is now a well-known phenomenon and, while Scandinavia has often been hailed as one of the regions where inequality has been the lowest, even here a similar trend toward widening inequality has been observed.
The topic of inequality has long been a major focus of interest within archaeology, but the goal and novelty of this volume is to start with the problem of material disparity by asking what this means, rather than starting with the problem of social inequality and trying to map observable material disparities onto its various conceptualizations. Key themes include variations between urban and rural contexts, as well as geographical proximity to centres of commerce and industry, different local/cultural valuations of – especially consumer – goods and discard practices. The result is an original study of a wealth of material culture that tells us how extensive this inequality actually was and the different ways it appeared in various societies.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Iceland.
Edited by:
Gavin Lucas (University of Iceland Iceland),
Vivi Lena Andersen (Independent Scholar,
Denmark),
Ágústa Edwald Maxwell (University of Iceland,
Iceland),
Jonas Moníe Nordin (Independent Scholar,
Sweden),
Timo Ylimaunu (University of Oulu,
Finland)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 236mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 570g
ISBN: 9781350455832
ISBN 10: 1350455830
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 12 June 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements General Map List of Contributors Chapter 1. Introduction (Vivi Lena Andersen, Ágústa Edwald Maxwell, Gavin Lucas, Jonas Monié-nordin, Timo Ylimaunu) Part 1: Perspectives Chapter 2. Power, Poverty and Plenty: Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Early Modern Scandinavia (Erik Bengtsson, University of Lund, Sweden) Chapter 3. Metropoles and Margins: an Atlantic Perspective (Audrey Horning, William and Mary College, USA) Part 2: Places Chapter 4. From the Archbishop’s Palace to the Paupers’ Graveyard: Materialities of Wealth, Poverty and Inequality in the City of Trondheim, Norway. (Chris Mclees, Niku, Norway) Chapter 5. The Consequences of Plenty. Exploring Material Disparities in the Archaeological Record of 17th and 18th Century Iceland. (Gavin Lucas, University of Iceland, Iceland) Chapter 6. In Prosperity and Adversity. Strategies of the Less Privileged in Times of Expansion and Crisis (Eva Svensson, Hilde Rigmor Amundsen and Hanna Enefalk, Karlstad University, Sweden) Chapter 7. On the Margin: Indentured Sámi in Central Sweden. Aspects of Resistance and Resilience. (Jonas Monié Nordin, University of Stockholm, Sweden) Chapter 8. The Almshouse as Materialised Poverty (Martin Hansson, University of Lund, Sweden) Chapter 9. Poverty, Household Precarity and Emerging Modernity in 19th Century Rural Iceland (Douglas Bolender, Boston University, USA) Chapter 10. Urban Marginality – Small Dwellings and Social Practices. (Göran Tagesson, Uppsala University, Sweden) Chapter 11. Urban Gardens in the 19th Century (Annemari Tranberg and Timo Ylimaunu, University of Oulu, Finland) Chapter 12. Urban Poverty. Living in the Impoverished Docklands in Aarhus 1600-1800 - Archaeology and History (Jette Linaa, Aarhus University, Denmark) Part 3: Things Chapter 13. The Use of a Large Finds Assemblage in Refining Concepts of Social Status: Finds From Nyboder, Copenhagen (Samuel Felix Keenan, Copenhagen City Museum, Denmark) Chapter 14. High and Low in the Citadel – Material Culture of Hierarchies in a Danish Military Site (Niels Henrik Andreason, Copenhagen City Museum, Denmark) Chapter 15. Shards From Rural Crofts to Scandinavian Metropoles - Early Modern Nordic Glass Finds as Indicators of Poverty and Plenty (Georg Haggrén, University of Turku, Finland) Chapter 16. Finnish Postmedieval Funerary Contexts and Attires – Complexity of Defining Material Wealth and Status (Sanna Lipkin, University of Oulu, Finland) Chapter 17. Living With Waste: Improvement and Waste Creation in 19th-century Iceland (Agústa Edwald Maxwell, University of Iceland, Iceland) Chapter 18. Commentary (Matthew Johnson, Northwestern University, USA) Notes Bibliography Index
Gavin Lucas is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Iceland, Iceland. His main research interests are in archaeological method and theory and the archaeology of the modern world. Vivi Lena Andersen is Head of Exhibitions & Public Outreach and Senior Researcher at the Museum of Copenhagen, Denmark. Ágústa Edwald Maxwell is Post-Doctoral Researcher in Archaeology at the University of Iceland, Iceland. Jonas Moníe-Nordin is Associate Professor in Archaeology at the University of Stockholm and the National Historical Museum of Sweden, Sweden. Timo Ylimaunu is Associate Professor in Historical Archaeology at the University of Oulu, Finland.
Reviews for Poverty and Plenty in Scandinavia and the North Atlantic: Later Historical Archaeologies of Material Excess and Scarcity
This is a thought-provoking collection exploring the causes, consequences and expressions of material plenty and poverty in early modern and modern northern Europe. It addresses fundamental questions many archaeologists grapple with: how to explain disparity in material wealth of archaeological assemblages? Is it always about social inequality? What do discarded things say about lived experiences? What emerges from these explorations is a complex image of thing-heavy and thing-lite worlds existing side by side. In these worlds, disparities originated not only from social and economic differences but were shaped by geography and connectivity, various socio-cultural norms towards consumption, worldviews and idiosyncratic choices. -- Magdalena Naum, Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, Lund University, Sweden
