The Pottery from the Early Medieval Trading Site and Cemetery at Groß Strömkendorf, Lkr. Nordwestmecklenburg

This book is an archaeological study involving natural sciences analyses of the ceramic find material from the settlement and the cemetery of the early medieval trading site Groß Strömkendorf, Nordwestmecklenburg. During the 8th and early 9th century Slavs, Scandinavians and Saxons used the place as a trading centre, and the site was most likely identical with the "emporium Reric", mentioned in Frankish Annales. The imported ceramics mainly derive from Scandinavia and the coastal region of the North Sea, but a large amount of sherds also came from the Rhineland and the Eiffel.

This work by Torbjörn Brorsson of the pottery from the early medieval trading place at Groß Strömkendorf at Wismar in Nordwestmecklenburg, will appear as the first volume of the series Frühmittelalterliche Archäologie zwischen Ostsee und Mittelmeer. The excavations at Groß Strömkendorf were conducted between 1990 and 1999, and a settlement with a cemetery was found at the site. Particularly in the area of the cemetery, it was possible to recover large numbers of relatively complete vessels, which had been used mainly as urns. Several almost completely preserved vessels were also recovered in wells, pits and in pit houses.
In the 8th and early 9th century the trading site was located on Slavonic territory. A large Scandinavian population seems to have lived and traded at the place, which is mainly visible through the ceramics. A small amount of Saxon material makes it also possible that Saxons visited the trading place.
The Slavonic vessel types at the site consist of Sukow, Feldberg, Fresendorf and Menkendorf. The detailed studies and the analyses of the ceramics have shown that there are only minor technological differences between the various Slavonic goods. The study has shown important differences between the Slavonic and the foreign types and it has also been possible to identify different Scandinavian regions through the ceramic material. The imported pottery also came from the North Sea Coast, the Rhineland and the foothills of the Eiffel. Some of these vessel types are the Muschelgrus ware, Tating and Badorf.
The pottery of Groß Strömkendorf has been studied in detail and different natural science analyses have been performed on a large amount of sherds. The investigation has lead to new insights about the contacts between the peoples of different regions in the early medieval Baltic region. The study of the pottery from Groß Strömkendorf is an important contribution to the understanding how people travelled and exchanged goods with others. It is also a contribution to the understanding of how people inter-acted and lived side-by-side. The ceramics from the site support the hypothesis that Groß Strömkendorf was the same place as the "emporium Reric" mentioned in the Royal Frankish Annals. Reric was abandoned in 808 and last mentioned in 809.

Auteur
Torbjörn Brorsson
born in Höganäs, Sweden.
Studied archaeology and geology at Lund University between 1990 and 1996. Brorsson made his Master of Science at the university in 1996.
In 2005 Brorsson became Doktor der Naturwissenschaft at Kiel University.
Brorsson started to work with ceramics in 1995 at Lund University. Since 2006 Brorsson is working at Ceramic Studies in Sweden, which is a company dealing with ceramics from rescue excavations as well as from research excavations. Ceramic Studies are involved in several different projects in Europe.
Brorsson is working with archaeological studies as well as natural science analyses, which are the same methods used in this book.