The Hereid cemetery: relational agency and topography within the Iron Age mortuary landscape of Hardanger, western Norway.

This paper emphasizes the landscape as a key factor in the long-term standing of one of Norway's largest prehistoric burial grounds: the Iron Age cemetery of Hereid, located in the village of Eidfjord in the Hardanger region. A recent field investigation generated important new data on the Hereid site, which has contributed to the high-resolution analysis of the cemetery presented here. The paper explores the wider 'meshwork' of people, animals, farm settlement, outfield resources and tracks within a new materialist perspective to argue that the Hardanger landscape served as a co-agent when constructing a regional mortuary order. Theories of relational agency are used to investigate whether Hereid's geography and topography can explain its scale and continuity. It is argued that Eidfjord constituted a focal point for wayfaring to and from the Hardangervidda mountain plateau, and the significance of the site is closely tied to its favourable location with regard to these communication routes and outfield resources. Beyond this case, the funerary settings in other large and medium sized cemeteries in Hardanger mirror Hereid remarkably. They all draw our attention to landscapes that facilitated movement and demonstrate the societal importance of burials and cemeteries in a long time perspective. • Analyses one of Norway's largest prehistoric burial grounds using newly gathered field data. • Examines whether the landscape served as a co-agent when constructing a regional mortuary order. • Highlights how the social significance of wayfaring is conveyed in all the cemeteries in the study region. • Demonstrates how similar topographic conditions triggered similar configurations of the mortuary landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]