Some Reflections on the Depositing of Hoards

by Keld Grinder-Hansen

Introduction

The conscientious oberservance to the so-called "Danefæ-law" (provisions for treasure trove) through centuries has provided a large and important hoard material from the Danish Middle Ages. No less than 327 hoards are known from the territory of present Denmark, which will be published in the catalogue, The Medieval Hoards of Denmark, c.1050-1550 in 1992

The heterogeneous character of the large medieval hoard material has naturally drawn the attention to a number of basic, methodological questions, concerning hoards and their general possiblities and their restrictions as a source material.

The coins in a hoard have passed through a number of selection processes from the time of their issue till they reach the numismatist's desk. These can be divided into processes in the life time of the hoards and processes in connection with the recovery of the coins in modern time.

In this survey I will focus on one aspect of the selection in the hoard's own life time and that is the question of why and when the hoards were deposited. Reflections of this kind is necessary, when you are making interpretations of a hoard material as the medieval Danish, where periods of a remarkable find concentration are followed by periods with only few hoards. Are plunderings and wars the only plausible reasons for the depositing, or should we also consider other possible explanations?

The hoard material as we see it today is however not only formed by the selection in the hoard's own time, but to a high degree also by the selection in the recovery phases.

The first unavoidable selection in the hoard material in the recovery proces lies in the fact, that it is only a smaller part of the once deposited hoards, which will be found again. The degree of recovery inside an area depends on a number of factors. First of all the finders' awareness of the historical value of coins and the importance of reporting finds of hoards to the authorities. Secondly the degree of systematic collection and registration of hoards by the state authorities. Thirdly, there are economic and geographical factors, affecting all socially-conditioned activities, which in the course of time have changed the assumptions underlying the rediscovery of hidden coin-hoards. By this is meant e.g. alterations in the intensity of agricultural cultivation of the soil, the use of new areas for agricultural production, industrialisation, expansion of the infrastructure and building activities of towns.

As the second main question in this article I will examine the socio-economic factors impact on the formation of the recovered hoard material as it is reflected in the hoards from the Danish Middle Ages. I will especially focus on the relation between changes in the cultural landscape and the time of find of the hoards.

The reasons for the depositing of hoards

. The questions of when a why a hoard was deposited, can very rarely be answered. There are however exceptions, where it is possible to deduce something about the reasons for the depositing of the hoard. In some cases the find context clearly indicates, that the hoard belongs to the category of accidentally lost hoards, that is a sum of money, which unforseen events of some kind have turned into a hoard - the farmer's loss of his purse at the marked place or the merchant's capital, lost due to a shipwreck. Another, more common category of hoards are the sacrificial hoards -"Dead Man's Tresures", hoards deposited in foundations stones. Here the find context also indicates that the owners have deliberately disposed of their money with no intension of recover them later. However, by most of the hoards, which belong to the two main categories of hoards: the emergency hoards and the saving hoards, the find context does not give any clue as to the reason for the original depositing of the hoard. Instead you have to make general considerations regarding the typical causes for hoards being deposited.

Fear of war and plundering have traditionally been reckoned to be the main causes for depositing of hoards, together with the violent epidemics which often followed in the wake of periods of discord and warfare. The direct connection between war-campaigns, plundering-raids and sickness on the one side and the number of hoards deposited on the other has been stressed time after time -strongest by Sture Bolin and Bengt Thordeman. Not only are more hoards deposited in times of strife, but more of them stay hidden. A concentration of hoards is primarily an evidence of war, not of thriving conditions and trade activities in a society, while few finds reflect periods of prosperity and growth. In other words there exists a direct proportionality between the numbers of hoards deposited and the degree of sufferings in an area. This conception has exerted a continued influence on the numismatic world, even though it was met with criticism already in the first decades after appearance. Against this war theory Vera Jammer (Hatz) has quite accurately objected that even though the incitement to deposit hoards would be greater in times of violence and war, one should not forget that the number of deposited hoards is in a descisive way dependent on the wealth of the country as a whole and on that of the individual hoarder. W. Hävernick has also emphasized, that the hoarding to a high degree reflects the importance of trade for the economic life of a certain area. H.Eichhorn has on the basis of his investigations of the large hoard-material from Franconia warned against the notion, that wars and hoard depositings are linked together. Taking the view, that the hoards most probably have been deposited temporally close to the latest coin in the hoard, the material shows a temporal spread, which indicates, that the hoards were deposited continuously and not only as a reaction to external dangers. The quite opposite conclusion is reached by Peter Ilisch in his investigation of hoards from Westfalia. Most of the hoards from this area, which originate in the 14th century or later, can be connected to known periods of war and strife. Even in those periods, where the lack of sufficent evidence prevent us from knowing much about the important events, it must be expected that concentrations of hoards reflect times of troubles in Westfalia.

The etnologist Sigurd Erixon requested as early as 1936 to consider this question in a more varied way. Each age follows its own pattern. War, political unrest and sickness are not the only motives for the hoard depositing. The amassing of fortunes has always accounted for much of the hoarding activity.

Pekka Sarvas' investigation of Finnish hoards from the 18th century clearly shows that an increase in the numbers of hoards deposited can be caused by disturbances in the coin-system. The material contains a large concentration of hoards with the latest coin from around 1750, when Finland was not threatened by war or epidemics, but suffered from a violent inflation. Conversely, the Russian conquest of Finland in the 1741-43 war has left no traces in the hoard material.

Bjørn Poulsen has recently shown, that an increased depositing of hoards can reflect changes in the credit possibilities in a society. From his investigations of 5 peasant accounts from North Schleswig, spreading in time from the end of the 14th century till the middle of the 17th century, Poulsen finds a limitation in the money circulation and the credit economy in the second third of the 17th century. Instead of lending money the rural population now kept considerable amounts of money ready for payment in connection with generational changes on the tenant farms. A very interesting oberservation, which possibly could be transferred to other periods in the Danish history. Perhaps could the concentrations of medieval hoards in the second half of the 14th century be interpretated along these lines?

In Sweden the reasons for the deposition of hoards have especially been discussed in connection with the large concentration of Viking Age hoards on the Island of Gothland. War and strife have also here traditionally been "blamed" for the large hoard material, but during the last decades other explanations have been launched.

Mårten Stenberger still supports the "Bolinic" theory of war in his fundamental study of the gothlandic Viking Age hoards, but he also underlines that the hoards also reflect wealth and the central position of Gothland in the Baltic trade.

Gert Hatz stresses the importance of trade for the hoard formation on Gothland. Hoards were put aside regulary in every day life, as a precaution against all types of dangers. The number of hoards, which were hidden, can perhaps have increased in times of trouble and can also be seen as an expression of the many dangers, which could meet the merchants during their travels abroad, but Hatz cannot find a narrow connection between wars and the hoard material in the Viking Age.

Kolbjørn Skaare argues in the same way, that war and civil disturbances do not provide a satisfactory explanation for the massive depositing of Viking Age hoards on Gothland. If we follow the war theory, the Gothlandic society should have been exposed to war, death and destruction all through the Viking Age, while England, which in fact on several occasions suffered severe plunderings, must be considered a peaceful society, due to the lack of hoards found there.

In the last two decades a number of studies concerning the composition of the gothlandic hoards have been published. A more varied picture of the Viking Age coin circulation on the island has emerged. A common assumption among these writers is, that trade forms the basis of the hoarding activity on the island.

A third quite different explanation for the depositing of hoards in pagan Gothland takes the starting point in the so-called "Law of Odin", mentioned by Snorri Sturluson in the Heimskringla-Saga. This a rather cryptic source, where we are told that the vikings buried hoards, when the time of their Death was approaching, because every man should enjoy in the hereafter what he had concealed in the ground. As late as in 1986 Lena Thunmark-Nylén has revived this explanation in an article, where she distinguishes between the elder, pagan Viking-Age hoards and the younger Christian and claims the existence of two different reasons for the depositing in the two periods. The hoards from pagan time were sacrificial hoards, which were not supposed to be recovered in this world, while the Christian hoards comprised savings of a more traditional kind. Her argument does however not convince. The depositing of hoards on Gothland and in the rest of Scandinavia seems not to have been affected by the christianization of the Scandinavians. Moreover single found coins and especially hoards occur very seldom in Viking-Age-graves in Scandinavia.

Yet another explanation for the depositing of hoards has been presented by Mats P. Malmer and Brita Malmer. They argue that the hoards were not solely deposited in times of war, but were hidden at all times in concurrence with the inflow of coins into the island. The Viking Age hoards clearly demonstrate, that there existed a disproportion between idea and function of the coin. Coins are deposited to a much larger degree in a society with a primitive economy as the Gothlandic Viking Age society, than in a higher developed society, as e.g. the contemporary English or German with a coin production, but a low degree of hoard depositings. The coins circulated only for a short period in Gothland, before they were placed in hoards.

Pekka Sarvas' investigations of the Swedish hoards from the 18th century partly supports this picture. The hoards are represented in larger numbers outside the coinproducing areas, where the population lived in a barter economy without much use of the coins in every day life. Instead they chose to deposite the coins.

Kenneth Jonsson has summarized the different explanations for the the large number of hoards found on Gothland. He emphasizes that none of the advanced theories alone can explain for the marked concentration in the Viking Age. Individually they can provide answers for parts of the deposited hoards, but a general solution to the problems does not exist. Jonsson underlines himself, that a widespread trade must have been behind the presence of the many silver hoards on the island. Recently Jonsson has drawn attention to the political conditions on Gothland, as an important basis for the the large concentration of hoards. The lack of a coin issuing political power on the island resulted in a stabil coin value based on the silver content, which made it natural to store one's coins in hoards. As a contrast the central power in England directly controlled the coin issue and maintained a high over-valuation of the coins in circulation, which made it unprofitable to gather fortunes in coins

If it is difficult to establish a direct relationship between increases in the number of hoards and known periods of unrest in connection with the Viking-Age hoards from Gothland, it is on the other hand possible to explain a concentration of medieval hoards on the island by linking it to a specific course of historical events, i.e. Valdemar Atterdag's attack on the island in 1361.

Similarly an investigation of the time of depositing of the hoards in Scania from more recent times shows that by far the majority of the hoards (80%) were deposited in times of war and strife.

The classic example of a connection between warevents and increased quantities of hoards from Danish ground is found in the time of the wars with Sweden in the 1650s. From that decade alone 64 daler-finds are known. This material is so exceptional that virtually on the basis of the hoards alone one can recon-struct the march of the Swedish King, Karl X Gustav, up through Jutland in 1658. But if Bjørn Poulsen's already mentioned observations regarding changes in the Danish credit market in the middle of the 17th century prove to be correct, it is not possible to explain the large number of silver hoards from this period alone through the dangers and destructions of war. We must also keep in mind, that the Danish rural population possessed considerably larger sums of money in cash at that time, than e.g. the 16th century.

Turning to the Danish medieval hoard material it must be stated, that it is only to a certain degree possible to find a correlation between periods of war and crisis and the number of hoards deposited.

A large number of hoards (27 in all) are known from the period of Sven Estridsen (1047-74), which was characterized by great unrest, and in which Denmark was repeatedly subjected to attack and plundering.

Do we instead look at the very unstable and violent period 1146-57, where no less than three claimants to the Throne, Svend, Knud og Valdemar fought for power, it must be noted, that these conditions have not resulted in a remarkable concentration of hoards. It is true that 7 hoards are known from this period, but besides the early recovered double hoard Øster Uttrup I and II, the rest of the hoards are very small - containing only between 3 and 13 coins. The limited number of coins in the hoards can perhaps instead be used as an argument for a rather underdeveloped monetary system in Denmark in this period.

The degree of monetarization has reached a far more advanced level in the 14th century, so the pre-condition for a massiv hoarding is here present. 126 of the 327 known medieval hoards, i.e. almost two-fifths, come from the troubled 14th century. No less than 64 of these hoards were deposited in the reigns of Erik Menved (1286-1319), Christopher II (1319-26, 1330-32), and of Valdemar III (1326-30). The serious inflation, which ravaged the Danish monetary system, reduced rapidly the silver content of the pennies to almost nothing (between 1 and 10%). The desperate need for money is reflected in the many recovered hoards from this period. Several of the hoards contain great quantities of coins, - e.g.Stjær with c.19,000 coins; the Vejstrup hoard containing 15,964 coins; the double hoard from Assens with a total of 16,960 coins, and the Systofte hoard with no less than 30,258 coins. 38 of the hoards originate in the 1320s and the beginning of the 1330s, where the Danish monetary system collapsed and much of Denmark was sliding into national collapse, and the greater part of Denmark was mortgaged to Holstein nobles.

In contrast to the first half of the 14th century the last civil war in Denmark, the so-called, Grevens Fejde, in 1534-36, has only left surprisingly few traces in the hoard-material.

Among the 20 known hoards from ca. 1523-ca.1540, only three hoards can with any certainty be assumed to have been deposited in connection with the violent conflicts of the civil war. 6 large hoards have latest-issued coins which date their time of depositing to after 1525-26. These hoards could in fact have been buried during Grevens Fejde. The timespan of nearly a decade between the dating of the latest coins and time of the civil war does however speak against this assumption.

Conclusions

In conclusion it must be stressed, that times of unrest, wars and epidemics have often been the cause of the depositing of hoards. One should, however, not rule out other causal explanations. An increase in the numbers of hoards deposited may also arise as a reaction to purely economic changes in society - inflation, raised taxes, changes in the credit market etc., and it should not be forgotten that hoards have constantly been deposited also in times of peace, as a precaution against attack, theft or fire, or before departure on a long journey. One therefore has to be careful not to make too rash generalizations about the reasons for the depositing of hoards, but try to look at the concentration of hoards and the periods with only few hoards against the background of the society, in which the hoarding took place. The degree of monetarization and the general economic level of activity, including the money-based trade in a society must be regarded as decisive variables. Finally it must be remembered, that even though it is possible to demonstrate a correlation between the depositing of a hoard and warlike events, it does not nercessarily mean that these external events caused the hoarding. Instead numerous, unknown, personal reasons could be responsible for the action.

The numbers of hoards deposited in times of peace and tranquility and times of war and strife have perhaps not differed drastically, but warfare was important for the

surviving

numbers of hoards, because it greatly increased the chances of their permanent loss. The many hoards found testify that a sudden dramatic event often prevented the owner from recovering the hoard from its hiding-place. He may have died in connection with war-transactions, or in one of the epidemics so frequent in the Middle Ages, or in the course of a journey far from home, without managing to pass on information about the hiding-place. There is however also the possibility that the owner simply could not find the hiding-place a of the hoard again!

The hoards and the time of their recovery

The previous discussion focused on why and when the hoards were deposited. The second main question in this article could in a similar way be phrased as why and when the hoards were recovered. If the Danish medieval hoards are divided up according to the time of rediscovery, a characteristic picture emerges. Figure 1 shows the chronological distribution of recovered hoards, divided up into intervals of decades. The pattern becomes an asymmetric curve. In the beginning of the 19th century less than 10 hoards are found in every decade. From the 1830s to the 1890s this number increases radically to a peak with more than 30 hoards per decade. The 5 decades 1840-1890 alone count for 43 % of the known medieval hoards (139 hoards). In the 1890s the number is suddenly reduced again to 20 hoards per decade and the descending tendency continues gradually through the 20th century, until the numbers after the Second World War have reached the level from the early 19th century. This distribution pattern can be seen again, interestingly enough, in its main characteristics, in a similar investigation of the chronological distribution of finds of Bronze Age deposits. The bronze Age finds increase at a steady rate from the period 1815-20 until the frequency reaches a peak around 1855-75. For another group of metal hoards from the German Iron Age, the frequency rises in a nearly identical way from around 1815-20, culminating in the period 1865-75, which is only a little earlier than the medieval hoards.

Below the national frequency diagram has been divided into four regional diagrams for Zealand including Lolland-Falster, Jutland, Funen and the island of Bornholm.

The diagrams of the four regional groups show a very uniform development with few chronological variations.

The general pattern in the Zealand distribution (fig.2.) follows the already described characteristic, regular course. In the beginning of the 19th century there is a gradual rise in the numbers of recovered hoards. A drastic increase starts in the 1850s with more than a doubling of the number of hoards from the previous decade. This high find frequency is continued up to 1890, where the number of recovered hoards suddenly returns to about the level of the 1840s. This decreasing tendency continues gradually through the 20th century.

Comparing this picture with the frequency diagram from Jutland (fig.3) we find correlation between the regions in general outline, but there are differences. The first noteable rise in the find frequence in Jutland lies earlier than on Zealand, that is in the 1850s. In the next two decades Jutland lies well below Zealand, but reaches the level of Zealand and even surpasses it in the following two decades up to 1890. In the 20th century the two diagrams follow the same course.

On Funen (fig.4.) we find the same early rise in the find frequency as in Jutland (1840s) and this level is contained until the turn of the century. It is remarkable, that no hoards were found from 1950-1980.

On the island of Bornholm (fig.5.) no less than 41 % of the discoveries (11 hoards) takes place in the two decades 1860-1880, followed by a period of 30 years without any finds at all!. After the Second World War remarkably few medieval hoards have been discovered. Until recently the three hoards, all found in the 1960s, were the only ones, but in 1990? a new 11th century hoard emerged in Lillegærde .

The growing number of hoards found, or rather registered as found, from the beginning of the 19th century reflects the fact that collection and registration of the hoards in the Royal Coin Cabinet in this period became systematised.

The distinct rise in the number of finds in the second half of the 19th century, however, is chiefly connected with the changed economic and geographical conditions in Denmark. The agricultural areas were expanded, areas of waste land were converted to use for cultivation, burial mounds were ploughed down, the moorland was cultivated, and systematic drainage and drying out of meadows and bogs was set in motion. In addition there were more intensive methods of cultivation of both new and old arable land: marling, fertilising, draining and deeper ploughing. More than 80 % of the medieval hoards have been found in the country. Most of them were reported as found in open fields. More than half of these hoards originate in this period of expansion for the Danish agriculture and of the 20 hoards which have been found in wetlands - bogs, meadows and river-banks - the time of discovery of the majority similarly falls within the second half of the 19th century. In conclusion, in this period there were also several discoveries of hoards in connection with the demolition and over-ploughing of prehistoric burial mounds and the removal of large stones from the fields. The comparisons of the find frequencies from Jutland and Zealand show, that there were some differences in the rythm of development in the 19th century in the two regions. On the basis of the surviving descriptions of find conditions of these early hoards and the present knowledge of the development in the cultural landscape in this period it is unfurtunately not possible to provide a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon, if we not choose to consider it a statistical coincidence.

Construction and building activities in the Danish towns increased in the decades around 1900, and this is similarly reflected in the find-frequency on a national basis - even though the geographical spread-pattern of the hoards is very uneven. 58 hoards are known from 33 towns, but that means that there are no hoards found in half of the Danish medieval towns.

Can this distribution be attributed to conditions in the life time of the hoards of a political/economic nature, or is it merely a reflection of topographical differences and contingencies, caused by the recovery processes in modern time?

In all 67 hoards have been found in connection with chuches, monasteries and cemeteries. Of the total of 30 hoards which have been found during digging in churchyards, half of them emerged in the period 1870-1930, with a noteworthy concentration in the two decades from 1870-1890. This must be connected with the increased numbers of burials, which followed the growth of the population in the 19th century and perhaps also a reflection of the realignments of the cemeteries, which were carried on in this period. The number of hoards found inside the church-buildings is relatively small (less than 20) with an uncharacteristic find distribution. It is however interesting, that the wide-spread investigations of the church floors, which have been carried on in Denmark since the 1950s, only have provided one certain hoard - from Skt Jørgensbjerg in Roskilde. In this connection it is worth noticing, that the investigation in and around the church of Sct.Drotten in Lund in 1984 resulted in the find of no less than three hoards from the Viking Age and The Middle Ages.

Another phenomenon in the distribution of finds is that finds deposited in certain periods seem to have a tendency also to be discovered around the same time. Thus 30 out of 65 hoards (46%) found from the civil war period were found within the decades 1840-1900. The explanation of this phenomenon may be that hoards from the same period were deposited at approximately the same depth in relation to the present surface-level, so that the deeper ploughing of the second half of the 19th century reached down to the level of the civil war hoards.

Only 11 of the Danish medieval hoards have been found during archaeological investigations, all of them after 1930, when the professionalisation of archaeology was taking place. The introduction of metal detectors from the end of the 1970s has resulted in a veritable boom in the numbers of stray finds through the 1980s, and has resulted in the discovery of several new medieval hoards.

Is this general decline in the numbers of hoards recovered in the 20th century to be seen as an indication of a general exhaustion of this source material? Have the fields and the constructions sites now yielded most of the original deposited hoards? I find this thought hard to believe - any way when we talk about the medieval hoards. From the period 1050-1550 327 hoards have been recovered, but that means that no more than 0,7 hoards pr year is known from the Danish Middle Ages! Part of the explanation for the decline in the number of hoards especially in the period after the Second World War can be attributed to the increased use of machinery in both agricultural production and by construction works. The farmer and the worker are now physically removed from the ground, placed in remote wheel houses, so they simply do not notice the signs of a hoard in the ground, as they did in earlier times.

The size of the hoards seems on the other hand to have increased in the period after the Second World War. Several of the largest known medieval hoards have emerged in the last 4-5 decades, eg.the Vejstrup hoard; the Ebbelnæs-hoard; the Kirial-hoard and the two unusually large gold treasure-hoards from Vejby and Hammershus. This tendency is also present in the hoard material from the 17th century. In the years 1968-88 several new hoards have been found, among them some of the largest hoards, which are known from the this period.

Conclusions

As the previous discussion has clearly shown, there exists a very close connection between important changes and developments in the Danish cultural landscape and the recovery frequency of the medieval hoards. When we talk about the representativity of a hoard material it it therefore important to keep in mind, that what we see today is the result of a number of selection processes both in the life time of the hoards, but certainly also in the modern recovery phase. It is the task of the numismatist to try to minimize the biases inflicted on the hoard material through these modern selection proceses, but at the samme time he must be aware, that the hoard material at his disposal has gone through an unavoidable selection, which must be attributed to the general development of the cultural geography of the area in question.

(NNÅ 1991 side 103-122)


 

Sammenfatning

Nogle overvejelser over årsagerne til skattefunds nedlæggelse og genfindelse.

Med udgangspunkt i de alt 327 kendte middelalderlige skattefund fra dansk grund, som i sommeren 1992 udgives i corpusværket: Danmarks middelalderlige skattefund, ca.1050-1500 (udg.Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, København 1992, 2 bind), diskuteres i nærværende artikel to centrale metodiske spørgsmål i forbindelse med behandling af større skattefundsmaterialer.

For det første spørgsmålet om årsagerne til skattefundenes nedlæggelse. Krig og ufredsperioder har traditionelt været betragtet som de absolut vigtigste årsager til skattenedlæggelse i overensstemmelse med Sture Bolin klassiske tese, at skattefund først og fremmest er beviser for krig og højest sekundært for handel og velstand. De sidste årtiers teoretiske og praktiske arbejde med skattefundsmaterialer bl.a. med de mange gotlandske vikingetidsskatte gør det imidlertid nødvendigt at betragte dette spørgsmål mere nuanceret. Urolige tider med krige og sygdomsepidemier har ofte har været årsag til skattenes nedlæggelse. Man må dog ikke på forhånd udelukke andre årsagsforklaringer. En forøget skattedeponering kan også opstå som reaktion på rent økonomiske ændringer i samfundet - inflation, forhøjelse af beskatningen etc, ligesom det ikke må glemmes, at skatte har været nedlagt til stadighed også i fredelige tider, hvor man som sikkerhed mod overfald, tyveri og brand eller før man begav sig ud på en længere rejse valgte at gemme en del eller hele sin kontante formue væk. Ser man på det danske skattefundsmateriale fremstår der ikke en entydig sammenhæng mellem koncentrationer af skattefund og kendte urosperioder i Danmarkshistorien.

Det andet hovedspørgsmål i artiklen drejer sig om sammenhængen mellem udviklingen af det danske kulturlandskab og hvornår og hvordan det middelalderlige skattefundsmateriale genfindes. I artiklen opdeles de middelalderlige skatte i tiår efter fundtidspunkt, hvilket giver et markant fordelingsmønster med en stor fundkoncentration i anden halvdel af 1800-tallet (i perioden 1840-90 findes alene 43 % af alle kendte midelalderskatte!). Denne koncentration genfindes i hovedtrækkene ved fordelingen af såvel Bronzealderens depotfund og Jernalderens skattefund. Forklaringen på disse fundmønstre må klart ses i de ændrede socio-økonomiske forhold i Danmark efter 1864 - den mere intensive dyrkning af landbrugsjorden med dybdepløjning, dræning af engarealer og kultivering af hedearealer og de forøgede konstruktions- og byggeaktivteter i de danske byer i årtierne o.1900. Fordelingsmønsteret viser imidlertid også, at skatte nedlagt i samme periode også synes at have en tendens til at blive genfundet indenfor de samme årtier. 30 ud af 65 skatte fra Borgerkrigsperioden (ca.46 %) fandtes således i årtierne 1840-1900. Dette kunne forklares med, at disse skatte oprindeligt blev nedlagt i nogenlunde samme dybde i forhold til det nuværende overfladeniveau og at dette niveau først nåedes af den dybere pløjning i anden halvdel af 1800-tallet. Der demonstreres i artiklen en klar sammenhæng mellem udviklingen af den danske kulturgeografi og sammensætningen af det danske skattefundsmateriale. En sammenhæng som til enhver tid må tages med i betragtning ved bedømmelsen af et givent skattefunds-materiales repræsentativitet.


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