Adventures in skating historiography
I used Gephi to make a graph of all the keywords connected to bone skates in the WBRG reference database. Graph generated using Gephi. Most of the results aren't very surprising. Of course bone skates are strongly linked to worked bone, bone, Europe, and the Middle Ages (1000–1500). More surprising are the links to North… Continue reading Bone skates and keywords
Arthur MacGregor is one of the heroes of bone skates studies. He proved that bone skates really were skates in 1975 by making a couple of pairs and skating on them. The next year, he published a really great review article. His dissertation Skeletal Materials presented the bigger picture. And then his book Bone, Antler,… Continue reading Arthur MacGregor
Two facts are clear: People were still using bone skates in Sweden in the nineteenth century (see pp. 143–145 of my Skates Made of Bone).Many people immigrated from Sweden to the midwestern United States in the nineteenth century. This combination of facts had led me to wonder whether Swedish immigrants to the Midwest used bone… Continue reading Did Swedish immigrants to the Midwest use bone skates?
In 1940, Sven T. Kjellberg published the results of his experiments on bone skates. He concluded that the bones he evaluated weren't used as skates, but others could have been. I reached a different conclusion from his results.
My book on bone skates, Skates Made of Bone: A History, is finally out. My copy has arrived, and the publisher, McFarland, is filling orders. You can get it directly from them or from the bookstore of your choice.
Gösta Berg (1903--1993) was a Swedish ethnologist who worked on skating, skiing, and other winter activities. His writings include three papers on bone skates, written in three different languages over a period of nearly thirty years.
In his Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Description of the Northern Peoples), Olaus Magnus describes races on bone skates that are "8--12 Italian miles" long. The question is, how long is that?
My book on bone skates is available for pre-order! You can get it directly from the publisher, McFarland, from Amazon, or from whatever bookstore you like best.
The Lödöse Museum in Sweden hosts an annual skating event---on bone skates! This year, the skating is scheduled for February 11 from 1 to 3 PM; the details are here (in Swedish). Skating on bones in Lödöse, Sweden. Photograph courtesy of Marie Schmidt, Lödöse Museum. There are videos of previous years' skating events on the… Continue reading Skating party in Lödöse
I just ran across an interesting bone skate in the Swedish History Museum's catalog. It's listed as having possible boat-like carvings. You can see them if you look carefully at the picture: right about the middle of the bone, just above the number written on it, there are some curved scratches. Photograph by Ola Myrin,… Continue reading Bone skates and boats