An Essay on Copper Flat Axes

Sammanfattning: This dissertation can be read on at least two levels. On one level it will deal with- how general patterns of cognitive perception set frames for and affect human action in history and how these patterns may change. A study on copper flat axes will serve as a foundation for this discussion. This examination of copper flat axes will, however, at the same time examplify some of the problems concerning archaeological artifact analysis, for example typology. These problems describe another level of this dissertation, which presents and discusses some reflections considering archaeological artifact analysis, and how perception influences our observations and interpretations. The focus of this dissertation is thus set on perception, but the phenomenon of perception is encountered from two differing angles; one general perspective is set on perception and historical change, while the other is set on how perception conditions analytical reasoning in archaeology. The structurations of individual trajectories are suggested as being of central importance for setting the frames for rationality. Changing patterns of trajectories can therefore come to transform the general understanding of things. The reason and the understanding of the world are with other words created through communication. The reason and understanding of the world can come to differ between persons with different patterns of trajectories. It is claimed in this dissertation that the relationships between communication, individual trajectories, reason and ideology have been of large importance for the transformations of cultural discourse in history.