THE KEY TO UPPÅKRA. DIGITIZING A UNIQUE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURAL HERITAGE
Uppåkra, situated four km south of the city of Lund in Scania, is the largest and most long-lived Iron Age settlement in Scandinavia. It held a position as a central place during more than a thousand years. From ca 100 BC to the late 10th century AD Uppåkra was an important commercial, political and religious power centre. The aim with the project The Key to Uppåkra is to secure and facilitate access to the archaeological documentation from the site. The interface is mainly directed towards scholars, but a public use is also possible. The platform consists of three parts:

1. All archaeological investigations done at Uppåkra from 1934 and onwards are collected in an “Investigation archive”, broken down by year. Trenches and their contexts can be reached through a GIS based map if the documentation have been digital. In the archive, reports, artefact databases, photographs and scanned drawings can be found. In the archive, also analyses of scientific nature are ordered, such as C14 datings, metal analyses, organic materials and the osteological sources.

2. A GIS based artefact database with 13 000 objects made of non-ferrous metals, as well as some other materials. The collection emerges from the intense metal detecting campaigns of the ploughed soil between 1996 and 2014. All other objects can be found in the file archive.

3. From the metal detecting campaigns, 6611 artefacts carrying vital information have been photographed front- and back-sides. These are mainly pieces of jewellery, fittings etc. They can be individually studied in the database, as well as their spatial distribution in the 40 ha large area. Photos are available in RAW, TIFF and JPEG formats.

All three parts of the platform can be reached through the project’s home page.

PROJECT RESULTS TO DATE
Since the condition of the documentation was not known in detail before the project started, a quality control was necessary to liberate the research potential. Excavations had been going on for a long time, staff responsible for the site have changed during the years, and different excavation methods have been in use.

The project bridges all these obstacles by digitizing the documentation, now an important basis for spatial and chronological research. In total, the Uppåkra archaeological record now has a physical home on a digital platform, an important condition for further inquiries.

An important and interesting development of the project is the collaboration with research engineer Johan Åhlfeldt. He has established a relation between the GIS based information and Internet. Artefact databases with several fields (relational databases) and GIS based information are used on individual computers. However, it is difficult to publish such information on the internet. Åhlfeldt’s software allow inquiries at different levels of proximity and resolution directly on-line, from single deposits in trenches to single artefacts or clusters of objects. The high-resolution GIS related artefact database constitutes a powerful tool for further investigations. A possibility to do spatial analyses and collect information on relations to other contemporary objects or buildings strengthens the contextual analysis.

The purpose of the osteological part of the project The key to Uppåkra was to construct a database of the extensive osteological material. The material derives from archaeological investigations during the years 1934, 1996-2012 and 2013-2019. The weight of the bone material corresponds to about two metric tons. The majority of the material was found at excavations in the central parts of the residence in connection with the cult house, burnt down houses and hall buildings. A small amount comes from medieval remains as well as remnants of Iron Age in an area west of Gamla Trelleborgsvägen. The bone material consists mostly of animal bones, but there are also human bones in different types of contexts, such as graves, the cult house, burnt houses and in the weapons depot. The database that has now been set up contains information on archaeological context, species, bone elements, etc., and is a prerequisite for further research on the material. The database will be updated according to the department's excavations at the site, and will be available as a compressed file on the website.

HOW HAS THE INFRASTRUCTURE BEEN USED, AND WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN RAISED
One post-doc researcher and one Ph. D. student are already engaged with the sources. Ph. D. Mikael Larsson is using paleo botanical information in a two-year project; ”Den Gröna Rikedomen- agrara resurser och konsumtion i järnålderns Uppåkra”. At the department, Ph D. student Andreas Svensson has chosen samples from the site for his studies of metal production and professionalization; projektet ”Vid städ och ur degel- centraliserat flermetallsmide och decentraliserad multimetallitet i Skandinaviens tidigurbana samhälle”. Osteologist Lena Nilsson has started a project aimed at an interpretation of human remains in the deposits on the site.

UNFORESEEN TECHNICAL OR METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS, AND DEVIATION FROM THE ORIGINAL PLAN
Challenges that have emerged have been solved at the frequent project meetings. The documentation problem with the large assemblage of bones (two tons) that was difficult to implement within the project’s timeframe was solved by allocating funding from within the existing budget.

The launch of the Key to Uppåkra platform will be carried out in November 2019, as the esthetic “interface” for visitors now is integrated and tested for the databases and artefact pictures.

INTEGRATION WITH THE DEPARTMENTS WORK, AS WELL AS PLATFORM SUSTAINABILITY
Maintenance of the infrastructure is up-held by the faculty’s IT department at Lund university, assisting with back-up and digital stability. There is a high degree of consciousness about the need for coordinating with other local databases at the faculty for sustainable use.

In the future, The Key to Uppåkra is a true key to on-going research on the site. By using scientific methods together with archaeology, the unique social and economic transformation process through centuries can be uncovered. One larger project,
”The Persistant Peers- Resilience and Change in Iron Age and Medieval Uppåkra”, is based on the now secured sources.

”Hallen på Höjden- dynastiers residens och domän” is the second large project now ready to be launched. By investigating a residence hall close to the cult house, the duality in Germanic worldview can be studied. The hall resided as the most important part of life on the domain through the 5th and 10th centuries. Documenting the hall, spatial use, analyses of exotic and every-day objects, osteological sources and macro fossil remains from crops, gives us a unique possibility to study Iron Age societies in long-term process.

Funding for these two large projects is now applied for from both private and public sources.

INFRASTRUCTURE ACCESSABILITY AND OPEN ACCESS- OPEN SCIENCE
Documents and photographs are available as Open Access, based on the usual demand for references.

POSSIBLE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
The Key to Uppåkra has already been presented at international conferences. Within the network “Sachsensymposion”, established in 1949, a large group of scholars is reached. Such networks, as well as other scholarly interfaces, are important steps towards new research. Sites as Old Uppsala and Sorte Muld on Bornholm must be mentioned as related settlements.

LINKS TO HOME PAGES
The Key to Uppåkra will have its own home page, together with other projects on the site; https://www.uppakra.lu.se/ . It can also be reached through the departments home page www.ark.lu.se.