From Eketorp to Jæren

»Leader Houses« in the Court Sites of South-western Norway

Abstract

Court sites are collections of houses oriented around an open middle field. These are found in the Norwegian regions bordering to the North Sea. The discussed sites in south-western Norway were mainly used in the Roman and Migration periods. During the last decade, a scholarly consensus has identified court sites as thing sites. Although sources like Tacitus’ Germania mentions leaders at thing sites, there have been only few attempts to trace the presence of leaders at the court sites. At the contemporary Eketorp ring-fort at Öland (Sweden), the house of a primus inter pares has previously been identified. Based on the hypothesis that similar houses existed at the court sites, special »leader houses« were identified at three court sites in Norway. These houses indicate the presence of leaders at the court sites, hereby challenging a dominant view of the sites as »egalitarian« and opening up for new interpretations.