Archaeology of the Romani people

One is Snarsmon (also pejoratively called Tattarstaden, roughly the Gypsy Town), a Romani village close to the Norwegian border in Tanum Municipality which was active as a sanctuary from the 1860s until the first years of the 20th century.

Done in the style of community archaeology, participants – other than professional archaeologists – included both local inhabitants of non-Romani origin, as well as members from several Traveller organizations and one Roma cultural association.

[5] One result of this project was the establishment in 2012 of the first Swedish museum exhibition about Traveller history, located in the town of Uddevalla, featuring some of the objects found during the excavations.

Core surveys began at the same time as those in Snarsmon, with two phases of archaeological excavation taking place in 2013 and 2014, which much like the previous project involved professional archaeologists and other scientists, local inhabitants, and Swedish Travellers.

The camp soon became permanent as the administrative process was dragged out, its inhabitants – about thirty people – living in tents, caravans and two home-built cottages, exposed to the weather.

The two-year project, titled I stadens utkant (In the City's Fringe), is financed partially by the Swedish National Heritage Board, and is a cooperative project between the Swedish History Museum, the cultural association É Romani Glinda (the Romani Mirror), Mångkulturellt Centrum (Multicultural Center) in Botkyrka, and Stiftelsen Kulturmiljövård (the Cultural Environment Management Foundation).

An example of this is the discovery of a skeleton in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery under Norwich Castle in Norfolk, which – as reported by British Archaeology – was genetically identified as a possible Romani man.