Abstract

In the first part of my talk I will explore the obvious tension connected with the concept “urban”, that between the universal and the particular. Should we reserve the concept for small-scale analyses of neighbouring communities within a limited timeframe, or should we design it so that it may be applied in large-scale universal comparisons with great time depth? The second part of my talk will be an attempt to apply the results of that discussion on Scandinavian urban sites of the first millennium AD.