Andreas Ropeid Sæbø

Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2025). Iron Age Monuments and the Power of Joint Action: Mound Construction, Communal Feasting and Assembly, and the Nature of Power at Hundorp, Present-Day Norway. Norwegian Archaeological Review 48(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2025.2553769 

Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2025). Monuments as active cooperation. Crisis, mound construction, and society in Scandinavia in the 6th century AD. Journal of Social Archaeology OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/14696053251366275

Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2024). Mounds Against the State? An Anarchist Approach to Mound Construction, Environmental Stress, and Centralization of Power in Viking and Merovingian Age Scandinavia. European Journal of Archaeology. ISSN 1461-9571. Mounds Against the State? An Anarchist Approach to Mound Construction, Environmental Stress, and Centralization of Power in Viking and Merovingian Age Scandinavia | European Journal of Archaeology | Cambridge Core

Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid & Ingar Mørkestøl Gundersen (2021). Arkeologien i Fron. Fronsbygdin. ISSN 1504-3436.

Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2020). Hauglegging i Sør-Fron – hva var de redd for? Gravfunn, løsfunn og flomskred i yngre jernalder. Viking (Oslo), 83(1). https://doi.org/10.5617/viking.8266

• Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2025). Iron Age Monuments and the Power of Joint Action: Mound Construction, Communal Feasting and Assembly, and the Nature of Power at Hundorp, Present-Day Norway. Norwegian Archaeological Review. ISSN 0029-3652. 58(2), p. 157–172. doi: 10.1080/00293652.2025.2553769. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent years have seen increased archaeological interest in the study of mutuality, cooperation, consensus and interdependence. In Scandinavian Iron Age archaeology, relevant works tend to treat voluntary cooperation as something different from and opposed to power. This paper suggests the alternative of the term ‘power with’, drawn from political theory, as a name for the power of joint action. The term is applied to an analysis of mound construction and communal feasting and assembly at Hundorp, present-day Norway. Hundorp is often presented as a centre of power and dynastic rule. I argue instead that there is much material from Hundorp that speaks of large-scale joint action and cooperation and less that speaks of hierarchisation and differentiation. This does not mean the place was not a centre of power, but indicates that power at Hundorp may have been jointly owned, representing communal ‘power with’ rather than exclusive ‘power over’. I do not dispute the existence of ‘power over’ in Iron Age Scandinavia but here I propose that the mounds of Hundorp expressed a different kind of collective agency.

• Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2025). Monuments as active cooperation. Crisis, mound construction, and society in Scandinavia in the 6th century AD. Journal of Social Archaeology. ISSN 1469-6053. doi: 10.1177/14696053251366275. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The largest mound in Scandinavia is the 6th-century Raknehaugen, present-day Norway. Although usually associated with power and hierarchy, an alternative interpretation relates Raknehaugen to climatic crisis and widespread crop failure. This paper explores the latter hypothesis with reference to recent work on joint ritual action, solidarity and group identity, and the archaeology of emotions. I introduce the archaeology of emotions to long-standing debates on the turmoil of 6th-century Scandinavia, and explore the bodily aspects of monument construction as a way to approach the social and political dimensions of group emotions.

• Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2024). Mounds Against the State? An Anarchist Approach to Mound Construction, Environmental Stress, and Centralization of Power in Viking and Merovingian Age Scandinavia. European Journal of Archaeology. ISSN 1461-9571. doi: 10.1017/eaa.2024.14. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this article, the author explores the cooperative aspects of mound construction in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Arguing against the outdated but widely held view that only centralized rule could organize monument construction, he investigates how participation in mound construction affected the people of Sør-Fron in south-eastern Norway. He contends, first, that repeated participation in mound construction helped create a sense of belonging and shared identity, which was maintained through centuries of major environmental and political turmoil. Second, mound construction was part of an active and conscious strategy to limit aggrandizement and prevent centralization and concentration of power. Rejection of Christianity arguably worked in similar ways. The author concludes with considerations of approaches to Iron Age monuments, emphasizing the importance of consensus and community-building and the role of communal opposition to centralized rule.

• Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2020). Hauglegging i Sør-Fron – hva var de redd for? Gravfunn, løsfunn og flomskred i yngre jernalder. Viking - Norsk arkeologisk årbok. ISSN 0332-608X. doi: 10.5617/viking.8266. Full text in Research Archive

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• Sæbø, Andreas Ropeid (2023). En krigersk natur? Full text in Research Archive
• Gundersen, Ingar Mørkestøl & Sæbø, Andeas Ropeid (2021). Arkeologien i Fron. Fronsbygdin. ISSN 1504-3436. Full text in Research Archive

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