Archaeology as fact and fiction : Mats P. Malmer's archaeological writings 1948-2002

Mats P. Malmer (1921-2007) published many essential books and articles on prehistoric archaeology beginning in 1948. This book offers a selection of texts, most of which have not been translated into English before. Malmer's work deals among other things with Mesolithic artefacts, Neolithic culture groups, Bronze Age barrows and rock carvings, and decorated Iron Age artefacts such as gold bracteates. First and foremost he published on methodology: how to do archaeological research in an objective way using well-defined terms and concepts. He constructed a system of typological categories ascending from attributes of individual objects up to cultures in parallel with the New Archeology, and quantitative methods such as production diagrams displaying the chorology and chronology of artefact types. The main line in his work is the study of innovation, from his introduction to archaeology of the pleion concept in 1957 to his final book on the Neolithic in 2002.

Mats P. Malmer was head of the Stone Age and Bronze Age Department at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm from 1959 to 1968. He held the professor's chair at Lund University 1968-1973 and at Stockholm University 1973-1988. He was married to Brita Malmer, professor of numismatics.