Archaeological heritage management in Sweden
The Swedish National Heritage Board and the management of the
archaeological heritage.
The National Heritage Board is the central administrative authority for questions
concerning the cultural environment and cultural heritage. The authority is answers to
the Ministry of Culture. Our mission is to play a proactive, coordinating role in the
work of cultural heritage, and to act to ensure its preservation and best use.
In 1666 the document known as the “Antiquities Ordinance” was ratified, Sweden’s
first regulation on ancient monuments. Today’s Heritage Conservation Act is from
1988. The Act starts off with the words; preserving and protecting our historic
environment is a national concern. It is a responsibility shared by all of us. According
to the law, the 21 County Administrative Boards supervise the preservation of
monuments and finds on the regional level, whereas the National Heritage Board does
on the national level
About the protection of ancient monuments and sites
Chapter 2 in the Heritage Conservation Act states that protected ancient
sites/monuments are traces of human activity in past ages, having resulted from use
in previous times and having been permanently abandoned. This definition also
includes natural formations associated with ancient customs, legends or historic
events. It is also important to remember that a site is protected regardless of whether
it is known or not. An undiscovered settlement is protected as a well-known grave
field.
Besides the site or monument itself, there is an area surrounding it which also is
protected by the law. The area is unique for each protected site with regard to its
nature and significance and the size of the area is decided by the County
Administration Board.
The National Heritage Board has previously performed field surveys for ancient sites
and monuments. Nowadays, our work concerning field surveys focuses on providing
training and support for local museums and others. We also set standards for
documentation. The results from surveys and excavations are gathered in the Swedish
digital sites and monuments record, called ASIS (abbreviation for ancient sites and
monuments information system). In ASIS there are approximately 630 000 localities
recorded. Out of them around 270 000 are monuments and sites which are protected
by the Heritage Conservation Act.
Contract archaeology
The Heritage Conservation Act also regulates how contract archaeology is to be
conducted. Bedsides the law there is binding ordinance and regulations describing
how the sections in the law ought to be implemented by the County Administrative
Boards. The National Board is responsible for drawing up regulations and we did a
revision in 2008. Furthermore we issue Guidelines which describe what we consider to
be best practice.
When a developer wishes to explore a piece of land that contains ancient remains,
he/she has to apply for a permit. The County Administrative Board then has to
evaluate society’s interest in the realization of the development project in relation to
the value of the monument or site. The developer must pay for all the archaeological
work that needs to be done, a regulation that was introduced in the Heritage
Conservation Act already in 1942.
The Swedish system for contract archaeology is thus based on collaboration between
three parties;
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The developer; who applies for a permit to disturb or remove a site or
monument.
The County Administrative Board; who on behalf of society commissions the
archaeology work. If they value the importance of the development higher than
the value of the Site/monument, they set up a submission document, send it to
the chosen archaeology unit/excavator. Then they assess the project plan drawn
up by the excavator, especially the scientific quality and if the proposed cost is
reasonably. Finally the County Administrative Boards also monitor the excavation
and evaluate the results.
The archaeological unit; which can be a museum, government agency or a private
firm, specifies in a project plan how the archaeological work/excavation ought to
be conducted which includes scientific objectives, methods, a budget and how
the results are going to be communicated.
Until 1998 all contact archaeology was carried out by official institutions, museums or
the contract archeological service at the National Heritage Board. But due to the
overall liberalization in society during the 1990´s a tender process was introduced
with the intention to improve cost efficiency and increase the quality of the outcome
of contract archaeology. According to the revised regulations the County
Administrative Boards shall carry though a tender process in order to appoint an
excavator, when they expect that the excavation cost will by higher than 80 000 Euro.
If the developer wants, a tender process can also be carried though if the cost is
between 20 000 and 80 000 Euro. But during 2010 there were only six developers
who used this possibility.
The archaeological process prior to a development usually consists of three steps;
The County Administrative Boards often needs to commission a special field survey,
especially if there are known remains in or close by the exploitation area. It is through
these surveys most settlements and other remains which are not visible above the
surface are found.
Next step in the process is to do a field evaluation which means to estimate the size,
content and complexity of the site. This is done by taking up trail trenches and
excavate smaller parts of the site.
The final step is of course the excavation when the site is being removed. In Sweden
we very seldom excavate the hole monument/site with the same ambition. Instead
the County Administrative Board initially through the submission document and then
the excavator in their project plan has pointed out priority areas based on scientific
questions.
The County Administrative Boards made in 2009 1120 decisions at the total amount of
247 million SEK (24 million Euros). 32 tender process were carried trough (equivalent
to106 million SEK). The archaeological work/excavations were conducted by 44
different archaeological units: 23 museums, 9 private companies and 2 government
agencies.
Process orientated management
The National Heritage has adapted a process orientated method for handling
archaeological issues. The process starts with formulating programs and strategies for
different areas. These documents then have to be transformed to concrete ways and
tools for the implementation of these ideas. Finally we have to monitor and evaluate if
and how the management is conducted, a work which gives input to revisions of
former programs and strategies.
An example from the work with Programs and Strategies
The National Heritage Board has developed an overall program to support the County
Administrative Boards when they formulate regional strategies for contact
archaeology.
The program raises aspects on the role of archaeology in society and states the
importance of a deeper understanding of why contract archaeology exists, for whom it
exists and what results you can expect. The answer is not simply that contract
archaeology is regulated by the law. The decisive reason is that the society through
the law expresses the importance of access to knowledge of the past! Your
responsibility to the society as an archaeologist is to include several different
perspectives and target groups.
The starting point for the work with the overall program for regional strategies was
the objectives for Swedish Culture Heritage policy and the vision of National Heritage
Board.
The objectives emphasize democratic aspects and the sentence of most importance to
contract archaeology is “promote a dynamic cultural heritage that is preserved, used
and developed”. The vision of National Heritage Board “Thinking in time” remained us
that we are responsible for a historical perspective and context in a society which is
constantly changing.
The objectives and our vision have open up for a new focus for contract archaeology:
The scientific result is no longer the objective but the means. The objective shall be to
transform and present the results of an excavation for different target groups in an
interesting and relevant manor.
But scientific results are as important as ever. Data from an excavation is not
knowledge. It has to be interpreted, communicated and understood by the users. The
new focus presupposes research.
It is essential that the regional strategies are prepared on a regional level, due to
different needs and conditions and not least due to the democratic aspect. It is also
important that the County Administrative Boards engage different stakeholders,
museums and researchers in the process. The work with these strategies should be
seen as a process of learning, understanding and cooperation.
An example from the work with Management and implementation
An important task for the National Heritage Board is to interpret the legislation and
describe best practice, to be a co-ordinator and give advice to the County
Administrative Boards. In describing best practice for contract archaeology we have
tried to define what quality stand for; relevant knowledge that reaches authorities,
researchers and the general public. It is the County Administrative Boards that have
the difficult task to both assess the quality of project plans when commissioning
excavations, monitoring if the excavation were cost efficient and if the results holds
scientific quality. The excavator is also obliged to have a self-monitoring system.
The National Heritage Board has published guidelines for different areas of contract
archaeology. The Guidelines are more detailed descriptions of best practice and aims
to be a support for the County Administrative Boards in their work to obtain good
quality in contract archaeology. The focus here is on how the Boards should think and
act when commissioning archaeological work/excavations. The Guidelines are not
standards of how to carry out actual field work.
The dialogue between the different parties within contract archaeology is of essential
importance for keeping up and increase quality. Therefore we arrange national
conferences and seminars on different topics, for example Quality in contract
archaeology and Documentation and reporting.
An example from the work with Monitoring and evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation are important tools when developing effective measures to
increase interest in and reduce threats to cultural heritage.
For example, in the Baltic Sea there is a unique heritage consisting of well preserved
shipwrecks from historical and prehistoric times. However this cultural heritage on the
seabed is threatened. Studies, made by the Swedish Maritime Museum, show that
damages caused by humans are common. Looting is a problem, but also damages as
a result of clumsy diving, trawling and ignorance in planning are frequent. The
solution to this problem is not to ban diving at all valuable wrecks, because the
cultural heritage can hardly be appreciated and protected if it is not available for those
interested. Instead, we have to find a balance between the prohibition and making
wrecks available in a sustainable manner. We therefore want a more flexible
legislation, adapted to a more modern way of treating the cultural heritage. One
proposal we have put forward is about more flexibility concerning diving on
shipwrecks protected by the Act. For an example, allow organized groups of divers to
dive on protected shipwrecks (diving parks) and allow diving in limited form on a few
wrecks in the Stockholm archipelago on which there currently is a ban on diving.
Another example on our work with monitoring and evaluation is the follow up on how
forestry causes damage to ancient monuments/sites in connection with felling. A
study conducted in 1999 showed that about half of the ancient monuments/sites
within a felling area were negatively affected. We therefore increased our cooperation
with the Forest agency, as well as information efforts towards the forestry sector. Five
years later we did a new follow up. However, the damage to ancient monuments was
on the same level as in the first study.
At the moment we are developing new and hopefully more effective actions to reduce
forestry damage to ancient monuments. Among other: a more effective monitoring
model in cooperation with the Forest Agency, a simplified administration of felling
reports including more effective education of lumberjacks and landowners and
encourage the prosecutors to give priority to this kind of crime.
National Heritage Board and cooperation across sector borders
The cultural heritage is affected by agriculture, forestry, road building etc. Since the
heritage sector is not responsible for measures within other sectors it is necessary to
cooperate with other authorities to achieve the best preservation for the monuments
and sites.
At a national level the National Heritage Board cooperates specifically with several
other authorities: Forestry – Swedish Forestry Agency, Agriculture – Swedish Board of
Agriculture, Planning – Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning,
Nature conservation – Environment Protection Agency, Roads and railways – Swedish
Transport Administration
The Heritage Conservation Act protects ancient monuments and sites regardless of
the land use. But there are also remains that are not protected by the Act, for
example stonewalls and remains from mills. In those cases the Forestry Act states
that the forestry must take these remains in consideration. The supervision of the
remains is split between the County Administration Board for remains protected
according to the Conservation Act, and the Forestry Agency who supervises the
remains protected according to the Forestry Act. The National Heritage Board was
thus the overall supervision of the management of cultural heritage in Sweden.
One specific method for the state sectors to cooperate is the policy for the
environmental objectives. Sixteen environmental quality objectives are to be met
within one generation, for instance that cultural monuments and environments will be
protected. These generation targets are supplemented by a number of additional and
revised interim targets. In the environmental objective for forests one of the interim
targets says; forest land will be managed in such a way as to avoid damage to ancient
monuments and to ensure that damage to other known valuable cultural remains is
negligible.
In reality over half of all monuments/sites are found to
the forestry measures. Most of the damages are caused
forestry machines. From the cultural heritage sector the
damages is to spread the geographical information
monuments and sites.
have suffered damage from
by soil scarification with big
main measure to stop these
in ASIS about all known
Heritage Board has a wide ranged cooperation with the Forestry Agency. Since 1995
the Forestry Agency has had their own qualified archaeologists and there have been
cooperation concerning field surveys, training of field archaeologists and different
kinds of evaluations. The cooperation also includes guidelines concerning legislation
and different information brochures. Occasionally there has been some cooperation
concerning development of gentle production-methods and selective cutting methods.
Gentle methods can help avoid damages in general by simply abandon soil
scarification, which is an integrated part of the mechanized clear cutting method.