Labor, Land, and Livelihood: Organization and Self-Organization of Production and Trade in Premodern Sweden

Contrary to long-held archaeological conventions around large-scale crafts and industrial production, there is tremendous variety in the organization, control, and location of both commodity and market-bound manufacturing, dependent upon the natural environment and the socio-political and economic settings in which they occur. Here, archaeological and textual evidence from the premodern state of Sweden is used as a case study of how organization and control may differ when developing in a pre- and protohistoric society with significant commoner power and inherently collective organization. As an homage to Peter Wells’ major and prescient contributions to the understanding of crafts production in early Europe, this review includes a discussion of older and newer theoretical frameworks that aid interpretation of continuities and discontinuities across the Late Iron Age, medieval, and early modern eras.