had far more impact than Dalin. He contributed to the publication of thirty-six dissertations on Scania’s medieval archaeology, and he was also the first to discuss the historical source value of Icelandic literature in a modern way. Lagerbring taught geography, a significant subject for archaeology, and he helped ensure that the eighteenth century was a golden age for recording the details of provinces, towns, and parishes, a descriptive tradition begun by Dijkman and Stobaeus. Lagerbring also made lasting contributions to the organization of the Cabinet of Coins, which was kept for a long time inside his house. He saw truth, founded in historical criticism, as the historian’s guiding star. His method of delivery was original in that it was not organized chronologically, as all earlier histories had been. In accordance with Voltaire, and in a manner similar to that of Botin, Lagerbring arranged source materials by subject matter.

Contrary to Dalin, Lagerbring drew a sharp distinction between source and literature, and he made two new demands on the historian: source references and source evaluation. With source references, statements or suppositions could be checked. For source evaluation, the cardinal rule was that the more certain the contemporary nature of the document, the greater its reliability. Agreement among several sources was important as a criterion of truth. But Lagerbring had a didactic and pedagogical delivery, and he viewed history in the light of his contemporary society’s political conditions and according to the rational critique of the eighteenth century. He evaluated ancient and medieval religious conditions in the same way as most scholars of the Enlightenment, with little sympathy for medieval people and a belief that monks were frauds.

The 1800s: Period of Transition

The beginning of the nineteenth century was full of change. Sweden surrendered finland to Russia, a new constitution was written in 1809, and foreign policy was changed. The French field-marshal Jean-Baptiste-Jules Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s generals, ascended the Swedish throne as King Karl XIV Johan in 1818, and during the 1830s, liberal political forces grew stronger.

It is this context Nils Henrik Sjöborg (1767– 1838) outlined a three-age system in 1797 even though its structure remained unclear. Sjöborg used a comparative ethnographic perspective, inspired by Anders Jahan Retzius (1742–1821), to help formulate his system. Stobaeus had also used ethnographic analogies to confirm that stone artifacts were used as tools before iron artifacts. Retzius, an early natural science student and a pupil of Linnaeus, donated his collection of prehistoric stone tools and natural history to Lund’s museum between 1805 and 1811. He also divided the Museum Stobaeanum into separate natural history, art history, and history departments.

Natural-scientific systematization gradually overtook the historical view. Magnus Bruzelius (1786–1855) began as a physical anthropologist but turned to antiquarian research. Modern European geology, which traced nature’s successive development, was also a significant influence, contrasting catastrophe theory with biblical chronology, which had dominated historical research since the sixteenth century.

First Half of the 1800s

A new chronological and ethnographical perspective on history took shape during the early nineteenth century. Its founders were christian jürgensen thomsen (1788–1865) from denmark and the Swede sven nilsson (1787– 1883). Thomsen’s three-age system replaced a chronology that was just a step above confusion. The Swede Magnus Bruzelius had formulated a similar system in the 1820s, based on archaeological find-contexts. Thomsen’s system was, however, more composite and it schematized find observations. He was also the first to publicize the system, partly in museological form and partly through communication with colleagues (Gräslund 1987, 18). Nilsson later gave this system a culture-historic shape.

As a scientist, Nilsson was a systematizer, but he was also educated in history and philosophy. He made significant contributions not only to archaeology but also to several subjects within the natural sciences. He collaborated with the English geologist sir charles lyell, the English archaeologist Sir John Lubbock (lord avebury), and their compatriot Charles Darwin. Nilsson