Materiały recenzowane z konferencji "Early medieval waterscapes Risks and opportunities for (im)material cultural exchange", która odbyła się w terminie 17-21 września 2016 roku w Antwerpii

The value of amber has long been discussed in the context of long-distance contact and trade, also in the Roman and Migrations periods. The role of trade in amber gathered in Sambia or in the Vistula Lagoon region has been particularly emphasised. The paper discusses another source of amber which could be possible explored on economically significant scale, i.e. the amber occurring on the western and northern coasts of Jutland. At present, it seems that several arguments can be shown in its support. The starting point for our discussion are Late Roman Period and early Migration Period burials from southern Scandinavia in which amber played the role of obol, i.e. a medium of payment. The concentration of amber obols in Jutland, especially in the Esbjerg region, may speak for a considerable role of this raw material in local economies. The latter interpretation is based on the assumption that objects used as obols had a real or symbolic value as a medium of payment. This apparently great importance of amber in the region can be connected with its local acquisition and processing performed on an economically significant scale. These observations can be corroborated by the tendencies observed with respect to size and composition of necklaces in Jutland, which possibly point to a temporary importance of yet another amber-bearing area, namely the Limfjord region. Since spindle-shaped amber obols clearly concentrate in Jutland, isolated finds of such artefacts in single graves in regions such as Scania, Zealand, the triangle between the Elbe and Weser, and Gdańsk Pomerania can be interpreted as one reflection of contact with western Jutland, contact which could have been to some extent inspired by trade in amber. In this context also the trade in amber with Roman provinces was shortly discussed.