The potential of Bromme locus classicus. What is left?

A re-examination and an educational excavation of the Bromme site

Lecture by Associate professor Mikkel Sørensen (University of Copenhagen) in the Saxo Archaeology Research Seminar Series Autumn 2023.

In 2021, students and teachers from the University of Copenhagen returned to the famous Bromme site in order to make an examination of its current state of preservation and its future research potential. The Bromme site, locus classicus, was found and excavated in the 1940s as the first Late Glacial site in southern Scandinavia, and it gave name to the Bromme Culture of Northern Europe. Further, it is one of the very few late Glacial sites with organic preservation.

During two weeks in September 2021, the site and its surrounding landscape were investigated by survey, re-excavations and geological coring. Despite the intensive agricultural activity, parts of the area were found buried under strata of sand from the Younger Dryas, and as such preserved for future research. However, other features of the site are threatened by agriculture and would need an excavation in order to be saved. Further, we were able to contribute with new evidence to the site’s controversial research history and particularly to the conflict between its two primary excavators, Erik Westerby and Therkel Mathiassen.