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Discussing Nordic towns in medieval and Early Modern eras must always start by noting that this is, at least up to the seventeenth century, a kind of periphery. In this article, we summarize aspects of the sixteenth-century town of Nya Lödöse and its hinterland, drawing on both archaeological and historical knowledge. The hinterland experienced an economic development in the sixteenth century, and increased volumes of exports of wood, iron, and animal products passed the town. Several actor-collectives operated on Nya Lödöse and they played an important part in a military and economic sense. But most of the people of Nya Lödöse lived in poor and sad conditions, not least when compared to the utopia genre of the times. The skeletal material from the churchyard at Nya Lödöse shows the wide distribution of a number of diseases, and a high degree of violence among men. Poverty and misery characterized the location.

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