page_title: Alby, Öland
section_title: Middle Ages through late seventeenth century
hierarchical_section_title: Alby, Öland / Middle Ages through late seventeenth century
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Hulterstads kyrkaEnglish: Hulterstad church
context_page_description: Alby is a village on the Baltic Sea in the Hulterstad district at the western fringe of the Stora Alvaret on the island of Öland, Sweden.
  Archaeological evidence indicates this settlement to have been one of the oldest on the island of Öland, with excavations, dating to the paleolithic era, showing the presence of hunter-gatherers. The village prehistory dates to the early Stone Age when settlers from the mainland migrated across the ice bridge connecting the island via the Kalmar Strait about 6000 to 7000 BC. These early inhabitants are known in the archaeological literature as the Alby People.
  In the earliest times villagers subsisted by hunting, fishing and gathering, but by 4000 BC farming supplanted that lifestyle, and continues to the year 2006 to be the primary livelihood. The village lies atop the low lying north-south coastal ridge that defines the separation of the coastal plain from the Stora Alvaret. Alby is situated along the two-lane east coast highway, with the communities of Hulterstad and Triberga to the south; to the north lie the villages of Stagerstad and Stena.
context_section_description: While little recorded information exists for this period, Viking interments are dated to the High Middle Ages.  By royal decree, detailed church records began to be kept by the latter 17th century in the form of births, deaths, baptisms and annual household censuses.  For the entire Hulterstad district, these archives were prepared and maintained at the Hulterstad Church (Hulterstads kyrka).  These records form a basis of estimating the population and lifespans of Alby residents at the end of the 17th century, since the records of Alby were kept distinct from other villages within the Hulterstad district.  The late 17th century village population has been estimated at 35 to 60 individuals with life expectancy approximately 45 years.  The oldest surviving buildings in Alby date to the 16th century; ironically they are Malmhouses, homes created for housing the poor and landless; in fact, these homes were built to very high standards of that early era and consist of heavy timber construction and interior fireplaces.  The social and cultural values of early Swedes are evidenced by the willingness of the landed citizens to fund quality housing for the poorer members of the community as early as the 16th century; moreover, this is an early proof of the industriousness of the poor to build substantial housing on land they did not own.
caption: Hulterstad Church
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