Poverty and Plenty in Scandinavia and the North Atlantic

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.

• List of FiguresList of TablesAcknowledgementsGeneral MapList of ContributorsChapter 1. Introduction (Vivi Lena Andersen, Ágústa Edwald Maxwell, Gavin Lucas, Jonas Monié-nordin, Timo Ylimaunu)Part 1: PerspectivesChapter 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: PlacesChapter 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: ThingsChapter 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 BibliographyIndex

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.