not a parallel to Birka or Hedeby. Tissø on Zealand is characterised as an aristocratic
residence, a manorial farm with abundant finds of prestigious objects, traces of
qualitative handicraft and external contacts. The site has also continuity back into the
migration period. The settlement of the central place Gudme on Fyn covered a vast area
but was obviously not dense. Instead the record has been interpreted as a collection of
about fifty farms with dwelling houses and outhouses. This is a model which is also
possible for Uppåkra, especially as the site is located centrally in a most fertile agrarian
region. It is also appropriate to consider that the earliest settlement of Lund, from
the eleventh century, has been reconstructed as a collection of spacious plots with a
settlement structure rather similar to concentrated rural farms (Carelli 2001 : 107 ).
In the 990 s Lund was established a few kilometres north of Uppåkra. In this case it is
a foundation initiated by the king and with the Church as an active and powerful
partner. It is also most probable that the localisation of Lund is connected to the
presence of the mighty Iron Age centre. Here an infrastructure, roads and other com-
munications and a large population were already present. Whether the king had
influence in Uppåkra or whether he saw it as a competing power is hard to know. About
100 years later, as the above-mentioned donation charter shows, the king possessed
substantial estates in Uppåkra. It is obvious that Uppåkra was part of the political power
game in eastern Denmark in the decades around 1000. Two fortresses, Borgeby and
Trelleborg, are dated to this period. Borgeby is situated at the estuary of the rivulet
Lödde Å, the entrance to the province of Skåne from the Strait of Öresund, and
Trelleborg is situated in the present town of Trelleborg on the south coast of Skåne. Both
sites are also situated at a communication link that connects the south and west coasts of
Skåne and which, in a north–south direction, runs through Uppåkra as well as Lund
(Eriksson 2001 ; Jacobsson 2003 ). It is probable that the two fortresses also played an
important part in politics, even if it is too early yet to state how.
The investigations in Uppåkra have shown the complexity of centre formations
during the entire first millennium. They show a central place different from the well-
known Viking Age trading places, and neither is it a manorial farm like Tissø. The
size and continuity of the place are exceptional. Notwithstanding societal changes and
political turbulence, Uppåkra kept its dominant position for 1 , 000 years. Only with the
establishment of Lund did Uppåkra lose its position as a centre and become a mere
agricultural settlement.
NOTENumbers of objects from Uppåkra given in this article refer to the standing of registered objects
in 2003.
BIBLIOGRAPHYArrhenius, B. ( 1994 ) ‘Järnåldern’, in Signums svenska konsthistoria, vol. 1 , Lund: Signum.
Carelli, P. ( 2001 ) En kapitalistisk anda. Kulturella förändringar i 1100 -talets Danmark, Lund:
Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Eriksson, M. ( 2001 ) ‘En väg till Uppåkra’, in L. Larsson (ed.) Uppåkra. Centrum i analys och rapport
(Uppåkrastudier 4 ), Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Hårdh, B. ( 2000 ) ‘Uppåkra – a centre in south Sweden in the 1 st millennium ad’, Antiquity,
74 ( 285 ): 640 – 8.
–– Birgitta Hårdh ––