Person

I am now retired as associate professor at CTR.

My main research interest is pre-Christian religions in Scandinavia and Central Europe, where I make use of archaeological material and texts from contemporaneous authors.

In my doctor’s thesis I analysed the religion in Southern Scandinavia from 700 BCE to 0 CE. Traces of rites from this time can be found on rock carvings, in depositions of objects and sometimes also human corpses below ground and in water, as well as through objects placed in graves. This religiosity shows large similarities with the contemporaneous Celtic religion in Central Europe and can be understood by means of this better documented religion.

Subsequently I have studied the religious development in Southern Scandinavia 0–700 CE. During this time our Nordic ancestors were influenced by religious ideas from many directions, which indicates that the later Old Norse religion contains ideas and rites collected from different times and different parts of Europe.