Identitet i praktik - Identity in Practice

12 Summary: Identity in Practice. Local, regional
and pan-regional aspects of the Northern
Funnel Beaker Culture
This book discusses the introduction of cultural practices
such as cultivation, cattle herding, pottery craft and
specific lithic traditions in the region around the Baltic
Sea during the Stone Age. The main focus is on the
Early Neolithic (4000-3300 cal. BC according to the
Scandinavian Chronology) Funnel Beaker Culture of
the Mälardalen and Bergslagen region in eastern Central
Sweden. Archaeological material from neighbouring
parts of Scandinavia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Kaliningrad, northern Poland and northern Germany
are also included in the discussion. The thesis does not
attempt to explain why practices like agriculture and
ceramic production were introduced, rather it discusses
when and how this took place.
To get a perspective on the introduction of pottery
technology in Mälardalen and Bergslagen around 4000
cal. BC., the thesis starts with an overview of the first appearance
of ceramics around the Baltic Sea. It is shown
that pottery was introduced along the eastern shores of
the Baltic more than 1000 years before people began
to practice the craft of pottery in Central Sweden. The
larger part of the thesis is devoted to the Early Neolithic
Funnel Beaker Culture (abbreviated TRB) of Mälardalen
and Bergslagen. The archaeological material from the
region is discussed as remains of activities like living,
crafting, cultivating, herding – cultural practices that
were created through performance and participation.
It is argued that participation in these activities shaped
aspects of the participants’ identity. The last part of
the thesis discusses the northern border of the Funnel
Beaker Culture. The northern limits of the distribution
of TRB materials have often been explained with reference
to ecological conditions, whereas here it is argued
that the northern border of the Funnel Beaker Culture
was determined by the extent of late Mesolithic social
networks.
The theoretical perspective on culture is inspired by
the writings of Ralph Linton (1936), who emphasised
participation and learning as central aspects of culture.
According to this perspective, culture can be viewed as
an activity or a product of an activity, which is performed,
practised and participated in. Linton highlighted
the various social contexts where culture is created and
reproduced. He put special emphasis on the local settings,
defined by direct interaction. He also discussed
how different aspects of culture can be reproduced
within different segments of a local society, social groups
defined, for example, by age or sex. Rather than being
homogeneous and coherent, culture can therefore be
viewed as heterogeneous and divergent.
Linton´s emphasis on culture as participation and
learning has a recent parallel in the Theory of Communities
of Practice, as formulated by Etienne Wenger and Janet
Lave (Lave & Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998). The theory
of communities of practice discusses learning through engagement
in communities defined by shared activities.
By learning and participating in a cultural practice, for
example manufacturing clay pots, that person becomes
part of the community defined by the shared practice.
Through engagement in the craft of the community, the
participant forms a relation to the history of the practice.
By (selectively) teaching the craft, the participants
shape the future of the practice and of the community.
In the engagement in cultural practice and through the
participation in various communities of practice, aspects of
identity are formed.
Among the archaeological remains from the Early
Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture in Mälardalen and Bergslagen
there are sites that can be interpreted as settlements,
hunting stations, fishing stations, burial sites and
offering fens. These different kinds of sites should not
be considered as isolated points in the landscape, but
rather as places connected through an intricate system
of forest trails and paddling routes, paths that humans
and their livestock travelled between homesteads, villages,
and seasonal sites. Eventually, they travelled the
same paths with the bodies of their dead relatives, to
be buried at ritual sites on islands in the archipelago.
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