Christer Westerdahl
Biographic Data
| ID | 3449443 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christer Westerdahl |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christer |
| FAMILY NAME | Westerdahl |
| SIGNATURE | WESTERDAHL C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Norwegian University of Science and Technology |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 161 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Heart of Hearths
Starting from new discoveries of classical Saami hearths in an area where they hitherto have been unknown, the author claims that the organization of the Saami hut can be explained by what can be considered as a shamanistic nomadic tradition common to Eurasia and Greenland. The comparative ethnographic material is supplied by the Evenks at the river Yenisey in Siberia. The expressions of the shamanistic cosmology are to be found in the midpassage…
Maritime Landscapes
Maritime Culture in the Netherlands
This paper examines the theory and practice of the maritime cultural landscape in general, and projects the theoretical concepts and aspects involved on the highly dynamic late medieval north-eastern Zuiderzee region in the Netherlands. The cultivation of land and marine erosion (floods and rising sea level) are considered as the main factors that caused the transformation of the physical landscape of this region from peatlands with freshwater ba…
The Maritime Middle Ages—Past, Present, and Future. Some Ideas from a Scandinavian Horizon
This paper was conceived as a keynote lecture for the Medieval Europe Research Congress (MERC) 2012 in Helsinki. The author himself has gone a long way from the more or less exclusively ship-functionalist perspective he presented at the first conference of this kind, Medieval Europe in 1992 in York. The intention here is to inspire other maritime archaeologists who may be stuck in studying ship technologies to apply their knowledge in contextual …
Medieval Carved Ship Images Found in Nordic Churches
The so-called ship graffiti found inside Catholic churches of the Scando-Baltic region may not only be graffiti. The author suggests that some may have been carved with votive intent in sacred spaces by people without greater means. The reason could have been a particular sea journey feared by sailors or their families. Actual proofs may be difficult to obtain due to the lack of inscriptions stating a particular intention, but in a Gotlandic chur…
The Sea their Graves
Cross Currents and Community Networks
Boats Apart. Building and Equipping an Iron-Age and Early-Medieval Ship in Northern Europe
Archaeological ship remains usually induce a functional, i.e. technological and social, interest. This text introduces what is not ‘another’ aspect in fact, but rather something that runs parallel or is contained within both. Maritime societies and individuals develop cosmologies and rituals, not only strategies for sustenance, which to them are supposed to be as necessary for survival. It is an additional challenge to archaeology to explore and …
Seal on Land, Elk at Sea
Ritual landscapes at sea are marked in the cognitive world of coastal people by a primary antagonism between sea and land. This contrast is negotiated by liminal ‘foreign’ agents, selected for their symbolic adherence to either part. The primary source of maritime culture is fishing as a survival of past hunter-gatherer societies. Forms of religious or magical management of this contrast are manifold, from recent superstitious magic to powerful s…
Stone maze symbols and navigation. A hypothesis on the origin of coastal stone mazes in the north
Stone maze symbols and navigation. A hypothesis on the origin of coastal stone mazes in the north
Maritime cultures and ship types
Maritime cultures and ship types
The substance of this article was presented in two papers at the 1993 Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference held in Durham
The trireme-an experimental form
The maritime cultural landscape
During the maritime archaeological survey of the coast ofSwedish Norrland 1975-80(Westerdahl, 1978; 1980a,b; 199 1 a) the need arose for a scien-tific term for the unity of remnants of maritime
Sewn boats of the North
Sewn boats of the North
On oral traditions and place names
The maritime cultural landscape
During the maritime archaeological survey of the coast ofSwedish Norrland 1975-80(Westerdahl, 1978; 1980a,b; 199 1 a) the need arose for a scien-tific term for the unity of remnants of maritime
Seal on Land, Elk at Sea
Ritual landscapes at sea are marked in the cognitive world of coastal people by a primary antagonism between sea and land. This contrast is negotiated by liminal ‘foreign’ agents, selected for their symbolic adherence to either part. The primary source of maritime culture is fishing as a survival of past hunter-gatherer societies. Forms of religious or magical management of this contrast are manifold, from recent superstitious magic to powerful s…
Maritime cultures and ship types
Maritime Culture in the Netherlands
This paper examines the theory and practice of the maritime cultural landscape in general, and projects the theoretical concepts and aspects involved on the highly dynamic late medieval north-eastern Zuiderzee region in the Netherlands. The cultivation of land and marine erosion (floods and rising sea level) are considered as the main factors that caused the transformation of the physical landscape of this region from peatlands with freshwater ba…
Medieval Carved Ship Images Found in Nordic Churches
The so-called ship graffiti found inside Catholic churches of the Scando-Baltic region may not only be graffiti. The author suggests that some may have been carved with votive intent in sacred spaces by people without greater means. The reason could have been a particular sea journey feared by sailors or their families. Actual proofs may be difficult to obtain due to the lack of inscriptions stating a particular intention, but in a Gotlandic chur…
Stone maze symbols and navigation. A hypothesis on the origin of coastal stone mazes in the north
Sewn boats of the North
On oral traditions and place names
The Maritime Middle Ages—Past, Present, and Future. Some Ideas from a Scandinavian Horizon
This paper was conceived as a keynote lecture for the Medieval Europe Research Congress (MERC) 2012 in Helsinki. The author himself has gone a long way from the more or less exclusively ship-functionalist perspective he presented at the first conference of this kind, Medieval Europe in 1992 in York. The intention here is to inspire other maritime archaeologists who may be stuck in studying ship technologies to apply their knowledge in contextual …
Boats Apart. Building and Equipping an Iron-Age and Early-Medieval Ship in Northern Europe
Archaeological ship remains usually induce a functional, i.e. technological and social, interest. This text introduces what is not ‘another’ aspect in fact, but rather something that runs parallel or is contained within both. Maritime societies and individuals develop cosmologies and rituals, not only strategies for sustenance, which to them are supposed to be as necessary for survival. It is an additional challenge to archaeology to explore and …
The trireme-an experimental form
Sewn boats of the North
On oral traditions and place names
Sewn boats of the North
Sewn boats of the North
The maritime cultural landscape
During the maritime archaeological survey of the coast ofSwedish Norrland 1975-80(Westerdahl, 1978; 1980a,b; 199 1 a) the need arose for a scien-tific term for the unity of remnants of maritime
The trireme-an experimental form
Maritime cultures and ship types
Maritime cultures and ship types
The substance of this article was presented in two papers at the 1993 Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference held in Durham
Stone maze symbols and navigation. A hypothesis on the origin of coastal stone mazes in the north
Stone maze symbols and navigation. A hypothesis on the origin of coastal stone mazes in the north
Seal on Land, Elk at Sea
Ritual landscapes at sea are marked in the cognitive world of coastal people by a primary antagonism between sea and land. This contrast is negotiated by liminal ‘foreign’ agents, selected for their symbolic adherence to either part. The primary source of maritime culture is fishing as a survival of past hunter-gatherer societies. Forms of religious or magical management of this contrast are manifold, from recent superstitious magic to powerful s…
Boats Apart. Building and Equipping an Iron-Age and Early-Medieval Ship in Northern Europe
Archaeological ship remains usually induce a functional, i.e. technological and social, interest. This text introduces what is not ‘another’ aspect in fact, but rather something that runs parallel or is contained within both. Maritime societies and individuals develop cosmologies and rituals, not only strategies for sustenance, which to them are supposed to be as necessary for survival. It is an additional challenge to archaeology to explore and …
Cross Currents and Community Networks
The Sea their Graves
The Maritime Middle Ages—Past, Present, and Future. Some Ideas from a Scandinavian Horizon
This paper was conceived as a keynote lecture for the Medieval Europe Research Congress (MERC) 2012 in Helsinki. The author himself has gone a long way from the more or less exclusively ship-functionalist perspective he presented at the first conference of this kind, Medieval Europe in 1992 in York. The intention here is to inspire other maritime archaeologists who may be stuck in studying ship technologies to apply their knowledge in contextual …
Medieval Carved Ship Images Found in Nordic Churches
The so-called ship graffiti found inside Catholic churches of the Scando-Baltic region may not only be graffiti. The author suggests that some may have been carved with votive intent in sacred spaces by people without greater means. The reason could have been a particular sea journey feared by sailors or their families. Actual proofs may be difficult to obtain due to the lack of inscriptions stating a particular intention, but in a Gotlandic chur…
Maritime Culture in the Netherlands
This paper examines the theory and practice of the maritime cultural landscape in general, and projects the theoretical concepts and aspects involved on the highly dynamic late medieval north-eastern Zuiderzee region in the Netherlands. The cultivation of land and marine erosion (floods and rising sea level) are considered as the main factors that caused the transformation of the physical landscape of this region from peatlands with freshwater ba…
Maritime Landscapes
The Heart of Hearths
Starting from new discoveries of classical Saami hearths in an area where they hitherto have been unknown, the author claims that the organization of the Saami hut can be explained by what can be considered as a shamanistic nomadic tradition common to Eurasia and Greenland. The comparative ethnographic material is supplied by the Evenks at the river Yenisey in Siberia. The expressions of the shamanistic cosmology are to be found in the midpassage…
Maritime and Coastal Archaeology (15 works) · History (14 works) · History (14 works) · Archaeology (11 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (8 works) · Art (8 works) · Art history (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Library science (7 works) · Citation (6 works)