Magdalena Naum

In 1735, professor Kilian Stobæus donated his collections to Lund University laying the foundation for the university’s first museum. The ‘Museum Stobæanum’ contained over 3000 natural history, historical and ethnographic objects typical of the cabinets of curiosity. This richly illustrated book is the first comprehensive history of these collections. Eighteen chapters, written by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, explore Stobæus as a researcher and collector; the concept, organization and development of the museum through time; as well as the culture of collecting, including its scientific and symbolic meaning. The authors also investigate specific examples of museum objects: fossils, plants enclosed in a herbarium, a crocodile, seashells and insects, North American artefacts, an Egyptian mummy, coins and medals, the skull of Descartes, Guyana war clubs and ethnographic objects from the South Pacific. The book contributes to a better understanding of Stobæus and his peers in their pursuit of knowledge through collecting as well as the complex processes that enabled early modern museums. On a broader level, it illuminates the global connections and intellectual environment of eighteenth-century Lund and Sweden.

This doctoral thesis examines early medieval Slavic migration to the island of Bornholm (Denmark). With a combination of interdisciplinary theories and methods, which focus on human translocation and memory and identity construction, a holistic approach to the studies of migration in archaeology is proposed. It is argued that in order to address cases of migration it is neccessary to consider the historical and social context that preceeded such movement as well as to pay attention to the processes ensuing migration. Thus in this study attention is given to the contemporaneous historical events in the western parts of the Baltic Sea, which is followed by archaeological analyses of remains of household actvities, burial rituals and objects related to female and male dress. These analyses form the basis for a discussion on the possible effects of resettlement on the creation of immigrant identity, immigrants' perception of themselves, and their positioning between the homelands that they have recently lost and the new landscapes they found themselves in. This thesis addresses several fundamental questions related to archaeological research on migration as well to the processes that follow human movements. The study considers how to approach prehistoric and early historical migrations in archaeology to account for the complexity of the subject. It touches upon questions related to the role and the nature of routines, habits and everyday interactions with material things in human life and the way they might be affected by translocation. It also explores the process of "translation" of a foreign landscape into a homeland. Ultimately this dissertation advocates for the importance of incorporating migration studies into the scope of archaeological research and the need for multidisciplinary approach to address the issues of human translocations. Magdalena Naum is a researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University. This is her PhD dissertation. Tryckår: 2008 Mjukband, illustrerad i s/v, 308 s