Introduction
Between ICE AND FIRE;
where humans crossed through a landscape that formed them. Their first view may have been of the glacial ice crunching against the mountain of Billingen. For several thousands of years, the icy plains and the fresh water of Lake Hornborgasjön provided plenty of food. Later, the earth supplied food when animals grazed and soils were cultivated. Life conditions were governed by the landscape, along with cultural values and social norms. Gradually, people learned to master and control nature. New opportunities arose when the technical developments of metal transformed people’s lives.
In our exhibition we want to show you this:
Children can touch the warmth and softness – that wouldn´t go amiss!
There are facts and objects for those who are inquisitive,
as well as values and questions for persons who are contemplative.
But above all,
we want to show you all
the amazing things that people have left behind
over thousands of years, and we want to remind
that together we can make sense of the mystery
that is Västergötland’s history.
The Ice Age
Bones from blue whale, fin whale, beluga whale, harp seal, bearded seal and haddock, as well as the mussel Portlandia Arctica, have been found on the plains surrounding Vara and Skara. When whalebones were first discovered in the 1700s, it was thought that they were bones from prehistoric human giants.
The bones in the showcases are 11,000 years old. The large vertebrae (from Skara) and the skull bone (from the Vara region) are from blue whale or fin whale, and the smaller vertebra (from Källby) is from a beluga whale.
Glacial Sea
Västergötland was covered by freezing cold sea at the edge of the glacial ice after the Ice Age, 12,000 years ago. The mountains Kinnekulle and Billingen were islands in the sea.
The soil of the Vara plain, which is now ploughed, harrowed, sown and harvested, was then the bottom of this arctic sea.
There was an abundance of fish, birds and marine animals such as seals and whales, but no humans yet. Mussel shells and bones of dead animals settled on the bottom of the arctic sea.
It would take another 2,000 years before humans arrived in these parts.
At least eight Ice Ages have occurred over the last million years in the history of Earth. Between the Ice Ages, there were interglacial periods lasting around 10,000 – 20,000 years when the climate was warmer. During the latest great Ice Age, the glacial ice covered Scandinavia for 100,000 years before it started to melt around 14,000 years ago. Gradually the weather became warmer. A new interglacial period had started, and these are the times we live in today.
Are we heading towards a new Ice Age or instead global warming caused by the environmental impact of humans?
Stone Age
Hornborgasjön is a lake rich in nutrients, and its shores have provided excellent living conditions ever since the end of the Ice Age.
There was plenty of fish in the water, and game in the surrounding pine and birch forests, which was a good reason for the first humans to settle by Hornborgasjön as early as 10,000 years ago.
By studying traces discovered near the lake, the archaeologists can find out where people lived and which tools they used. It is also possible to determine which time of the year people stayed at the lakeside.
Groups of people who lived by the lake did not settle in one place but moved around depending on the season and availability of plants, fish and meat. By analysing skeletons that have been found, we can see that they lived on a varied diet consisting of plants, nuts, sea fish, freshwater fish and game.
By analysing use-wear on flint tools, archaeologists can see that they were used for a variety of purposes.
Certain types of tools were required for working in bone and antler. Completely different sets of tools were needed for making pointed wooden implements.
For making slotted arrows or spears, a flint blade with sharpened rounded edges could be used. Slots were cut in a wooden point into which small sharp flint blades could be fastened. These were replaced when they became blunt, and the tiny square blades are found by archaeologists.
A burin is a tool that is particularly suited for working in hard materials such as bone or antler. The sharp point can be used for carving or cutting.
Sometimes a larger and more powerful tool was needed, like an axe. When the axe was blunt after use, it could be sharpened by knapping off a bit of the edge.
A source of food alongside fishing was hunting. Some of the finds around Hornborgasjön are arrowheads from various prehistoric periods. The most common are from the early Stone Age, but arrowheads from later parts of the Stone Age are also found, revealing that the surroundings of the lake have been good hunting grounds throughout thousands of years. Most of the early arrowheads were made of long flint blades that were struck or pressed out of a flint core. Hammer stones and pointed striking tools of bone were used to work the flint.
Various types of axes are commonly found at settlement sites all around the lake. The shape of the axes and the material they were made of varied over time, giving an indication of what they were used for, but also which materials were available for making an axe. Since different kinds of axes were made during different periods, this helps the archaeologists determine the age of the settlement site. The earliest axes in the region of Hornborgasjön are flake axes, followed by Lihult axes, and later pecked axes. Axes vary in size from a few centimetres to a couple of decimetres.
(The finds in the showcases on this side are on loan from Leif Arvidsson, Skövde)
Most of the artefacts found by archaeologists from this period are made of flint and stone. Organic material is more perishable. That is why we seldom find items of bone, antler, leather or wood.
The most common finds are of flint. Flint was formed 50 million years ago in chalk and lime layers on the bottom of the sea. The Stone Age people brought it here from Skåne and Denmark. Flint is very hard, and is suitable for making arrowheads and knives.
Other kinds of stone were used too. Typical for this inland area is the local Cambrian flint that can be found around the mountain of Kinnekulle. It was used as an alternative to the south Scandinavian flint.
Artefacts made of quartz and rock crystal have been unearthed at sites all around the lake. Occasionally, objects of antler and bone have been discovered as well.
The Almeö settlement site by Hornborgasjön has been meticulously excavated by archaeologists. Analysis of charcoal and animal bones has shown us that the first humans moved to Almeö more than 9,000 years ago. These intriguing finds reveal that humans hunted and fished here. We see that they crafted bone and wood, and cured animal skins as well.
Analysis of fish scales, identified as perch, indicate that people stayed at the settlement site during winter and spring. Only very few hazelnut shells were discovered which would imply that the settlement site was not used during the autumn.
In addition, archaeologists discovered several dog burials revealing that the earliest people living in Västergötland kept domestic animals.
Among the thousands of finds, a multitude of tools can be seen, arrowheads, lancets, flake axes and core axes, burins, blades and cores.
The Earliest Human
A skull was unearthed in October 1990 at the farm Hanaskede in Axvall. It was discovered that this skull was 10,000 years old, and is therefore the earliest human trace in Västergötland.
After the glacial ice had melted, the weather became gradually warmer. Edible plants were abundant, and there was plenty of game to hunt in the sparsely forested landscape.
By analysing tissue from skeletons, we can find out that people lived on food from both the inland and the sea. This reveals that people moved around over vast areas.
In the surroundings of Hornborgasjön near Lake Vänern, which was then a bay in the sea, we can still find traces of the first humans to arrive in the area.
This is the skull of a 40-year-old man. He had loose teeth that were severely worn and he suffered from tooth ache. The extreme wear of his teeth had exposed the pulp on the outer side of his right front tooth. Bacteria had entered the root and pus had formed in his jawbone. Moreover, he had a scar formation from a healed injury in the frontal bone above his right eye.
For their survival, people had to make use of various niches in the landscape. Aurochs, elk, boar, red deer, roe deer, bear, wolf, hare and forest birds were hunted in the forests. Beaver, waterfowl, pike, perch and other kinds of fish were caught in lakes and rivers. Other important food included insects and mussels, as well as seeds, fruit, leaves and roots.
Tools used by the earliest people in Västergötland were made of bone, antler, stone and wood. Lancet arrowheads, the flake axe and two flint cores were found near Hornborgasjön. The axe made of elk antler is from Lidköping.
Farmers
All over the countryside, particularly in the Falbygden region, we see traces of the earliest farmers. Groups of people settled in the open deciduous forests where cattle could graze and small fields were cleared.
The earliest cereal grain found in Västergötland is 5,000 years old.
Cattle was wealth. People could keep more animals by controlling larger areas.
Consequently, this was how power over land became important. Social differences were created between those who owned more and those who owned less.
A passage grave was a communal burial place for a family, a tribe or perhaps for the people who lived in a certain area. Hundreds of people might be buried there over a long period of time. The dead were placed sitting in the grave. When the body decayed, the skeleton collapsed into a heap.
The skeleton in this showcase comes from the passage grave at Frälsegården in Gökhem. It is a woman who died when she was around 40-50 years old. At some stage in life, she had an accident and broke a vertebra in her neck. She survived and the fracture healed. The skeleton was discovered in front of the entrance of the passage grave. When the woman was buried, 4,300 years ago, she was placed facing the passage entrance, sitting with her legs drawn up and folded arms.
The passage grave in Gökhem was excavated by archaeologists in 2001. Remains of the skeletons of at least 44 women, men and children were discovered.
Passage graves in Västergötland were built over a period of only a few hundred years around 5000 years ago. Archaeologists calculate that the period of use was around 800 years. Passage graves are impressive constructions, and some of the stones weigh as much as twenty tonnes.
This type of grave occurs along the Atlantic coast and on the British Isles. In Sweden, there are approximately 400 passage graves, 260 of these in Västergötland.
Amongst the bones in the graves, there are some animal bones and beads made of amber and teeth from animals, which had probably been fastened to the clothes of the corpses.
At the entrance of the passage, archaeologists find potsherds, burnt flint and broken axes.
However, the archaeologists do not find all the parts of the broken objects even if the conditions for preservation are good. Perhaps the Stone Age people kept some of the potsherds and parts of objects as memories.
New kinds of tools and equipment were needed for keeping animals, cultivating fields and building large long-houses. An axe was the most important tool for clearing the forest and constructing fences and houses. Crops were harvested with flint sickles. Such sickles were also used for butchering, and for scraping hides or when cutting skins and sinews.
The sheep that were kept provided wool, and people could now make textiles. Clothing changed and a variety of textile techniques were developed, as well as methods to dye yarn into different colours.
Various containers were needed to be able to store food. Pottery that could be specifically shaped to suit the practical purpose became a necessity. Pots were made for food storage and for making milk products. The pots were decorated with lines, pits and cord impressions to make attractive patterns before they were fired in an open fire.
The first farmers primarily kept cattle and did not grow crops so much. Isotope and trace element analysis of bones indicate that meat was still the basis of the diet and the proportion of cereals (grain) was very small. In addition, a considerable amount of fish, mussels and insects were consumed.
The climate was warmer than it is now, and the cattle could stay outside all year. Keeping domestic cattle was like having a living larder; cattle could be slaughtered when necessary, instead of daily hunting and fishing. Mostly cattle, but also sheep, goats and pigs, were a supply of meat, milk, blood, as well as wool, hides, sinews and bone.
Bronze Age
Side by side with the first farmers, other groups continued to live on hunting and fishing. When studying artefacts, burial customs and other traces, we can see that it was only during the late Stone Age and beginning of the Bronze Age (3,500 – 4,000 years ago) that people seem to have had more settled ways of supporting themselves. The landscape was then fully populated in all places suitable for cultivation and keeping cattle. Moreover, this was when domestic horses came to Scandinavia.
Common finds from this period are shaft-hole axes of stone. Thousands of this kind of axe have been found in fields all over Västergötland. A typical grave was a stone cist, which could be the burial place of many people. Stone cists can contain numerous finds such as daggers, sickles, flint arrowheads and slate pendants.
Flint tools from this period are amazingly neatly made. The craft was at its peak. But we can also see that skilled flint knappers were trying to copy a new kind of material – the exclusive bronze had become known. The knapped ridge on the handle of flint daggers replicated casting seams on the earliest bronze daggers.
A harder type of metal could be made by mixing a certain amount of tin into the melted copper. To melt the metal, a special furnace was needed, which could be heated to a temperature of around 800-1000 degrees centigrade. The melted metal could then be poured into a mould of soapstone or clay.
The cast objects were then decorated in a variety of patterns. Typical of this period were wavy patterns, circles and spirals. The same type of artefacts with similar patterns can be found all over Europe. This indicates lively contact between different regions through trading, gifts and travelling. Contact with southern regions developed along with the increasing import of bronze.
Even if people now had bronze to make entirely new types of objects, they still used flint, stone and bone. Throughout the Bronze Age, these continued to be important materials for making a range of tools. It was only when iron started to be used more than 1000 years later that any real technological changes occurred.
The Age of Bronze
Gold was the first metal that people from Scandinavia encountered, even as early as in the Stone Age 5000 years ago.
Nevertheless, an alloy of copper and tin has named this next period – the Bronze Age.
The first artefacts made of bronze came to Västergötland 4,000 years ago. Raw metal was imported and soon people had learned to cast bronze.
Luxury items could now be made of metal for those who could afford it. Differences between people became more distinct in a society where the elite controlled the inaccessible bronze.
Forging Bronze
After the discovery of the Fröslunda shields, several copies were made. It has been possible to recreate the shape, the curvature and decoration of the shields in sheet brass. But to make thin enough bronze plate by forging and hammering has not been achieved.
Even today we do not know in detail how the shields were forged. The bronze smiths probably started with a piece of cast bronze, and hammered it out into the rounded and gradually thinner bronze plate of the shield. You can still see the marks where the bronze smith’s hammer struck the plate.
Sometimes, the bronze plate broke during the forging, even though the bronze smiths were extremely skilled. Bronze bands or threads have been riveted onto the shields to mend these cracks.
The concentric rings of bosses were punched by the bronze smith along engraved guidelines. Bosses and protrusions could be shaped to satisfaction by resting the disc on a soft surface, such as leather or pitch. A tin wire was folded into the circumference of the shield to give it more stability.
Votive deposits dating from the later part of the Bronze Age often contain women’s ornaments. Usually, they are found in wetlands or drained bogs. This would indicate a goddess associated with water. Perhaps the offering was for the Sun Goddess herself, who was a captive of the dark water during the night. One of the richest votive deposits in Västergötland was discovered in 1850 in a bog at Senäte on Kållandsö.
This sacrifice consists of two hanging vessels, one belt plate, four torques and a brooch, all in cast bronze. The hanging vessels have two hangers on the rim, and a band or a belt would have been threaded through the hangers. The belt was worn around the waist and the bowl could then have functioned as a “waist pack” or just as an ornament. The belt plate could be fastened with a button on the inside to a belt around the waist.
The artefacts in the Senäte find were more or less contemporary with the shields from Fröslunda.
In the autumn of 1985, something remarkable was discovered in a field at Fröslunda farm on Kålland. Ploughing his field, the farmer suddenly tore up a bronze shield from the ground. The plough had been caught up in what later turned out to be the most momentous find of bronze shields ever.
No less than 18 shields had been sacrificed in a shallow bay of Lake Vänern almost 3,000 years ago; perhaps as an offering to a sun goddess. This magnificent discovery attracted interest throughout Europe. A few similar shields had been found earlier in Denmark and Germany, but now the number of known shields was tripled.
The thin shields have not been used in warfare. Instead, they were sun symbols used in ritual contexts. A belief was that the sun was drawn over the sky and reborn every day. At night she was held captive in the water. Sun symbols or shields can be seen on rock carvings from this period, along with ships, wheels, axes, horses, oxen, humans and cup marks.
The Bronze Age population on Kålland were cattle-herding farmers who also fished and hunted seabirds and forest animals. Domestic animals, mainly cattle and sheep, were vital for subsistence. Pastureland by the side of Lake Vänern was rich, and people here may have been able to rear more animals than they needed for themselves. This meant that they could trade and exchanging gifts with foreign regions, and in such a way become part of the European Bronze Age culture, even from their location on the northern fringes.
A new custom for this period was to cremate the dead. This is an indication of a gradual change in views about death and the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead. Individual graves, intended just for one person, replaced the communal family graves that were common during the Stone Age and early Bronze Age.
Scandinavia and Europe
Three thousand years ago, in the heart of Europe, a number of advanced Bronze Age cultures developed. One was the Hallstatt culture where a small part of the population was wealthy and prosperous. The bronzes they owned were both for everyday use and symbols for status and power.
This was a society where warriors became essential in the service of powerful leaders. A warrior’s equipment can be found in his grave: helmet, cuirass, leg armour and a shield of forged bronze.
Hallstatt artefacts were traded all over Europe, reaching distant parts such as Scandinavia when items changed hands as gifts, bride prices or bribes. Here, objects made of bronze became exclusive additions to locally produced tools and equipment. Whether made here or made abroad, bronze items were always owned by the elite: warriors, chieftains or their equals.
For Humans and Gods
Once upon a time, the Fröslunda shields were deposited in the water for ever. It was a ritual event and an offering to higher powers. But we do not know why the shields, in particular, were sacrificed. How had they been used before they were sacrificed? Did they hang in a temple? Or were they part of a warrior’s equipment for a procession? The bronze plate of the shields is only half a millimetre in thickness and would not have been any protection whatsoever, and would probably instead have been for ceremonial use.
No “real” Bronze Age shields have yet been found. Perhaps inspiration came from the Mediterranean cultures of this period (around 700 BC). For example, the Greeks and Etruscans had sacred shields.
Votive depositions in bogs and water occurred during the whole of the Bronze Age. Axes were common sacrifices during the early and middle Bronze Age. Most of the depositions were tools for use, but some were special ceremonial axes. In the late Bronze Age, it became more common to sacrifice women’s ornaments.
To find sacrificed Bronze Age shields is a unique event. Rock carvings depicting shields are more common. Human figures wielding swords, spears and shields can be seen on the Scandinavian rock carvings. Such pictures give more substance to the impression that the shields were ritual objects.
Iron Age
Farming was intensified just over 2000 years ago during the early Iron Age, and the landscape started to be organised in a new way.
Land was used alternately as fields for cultivation, meadowland and pastureland. Settlement sites became hamlets where work on the fields and in the hamlet was coordinated amongst the farmers. Traces of such a hamlet were discovered at a site near Skövde, where the remains of two or three contemporary neighbouring farms could be followed over a period of 400 years. The hamlet was situated close to water, pastureland, meadows and fields that could be cultivated.
Unlike present day fields, the valuable growing crops were fenced in, not the animals. Animals were kept out from the cultivated fields and meadows, which were situated near the settlement. A little distance away were the burial sites.
At the sites of Iron Age hamlets or settlements, we find loom-weights made of burnt clay. They were used to weigh down the warp in a standing loom, fastened to the ends of the warp threads. The looms no longer remain but the loom-weights are still in place, sometimes still in a row where they once hung on the loom.
Cloth was made at each farm, mostly of wool and some linen. Plain weave and twill were the common weaving techniques, but cloth fragments of four-shaft twill have also been found. Yarn was dyed by using plants and fungi. The small discs were used as spindle whorls for spinning by hand. The spindle whorl was a weight to help the spindle rotate when spinning a thread of carded wool. Spindle whorls were made of clay, stone, bone, horn, soapstone or slate.
Keys are seldom found at settlement sites, but more often in burials. The keys in the showcase have been found in burials in Brogrunda, dating from AD 400-500. Usually, it was women who were buried with keys. A key was the symbol for the mistress of the house who could lock doors, chests and cupboards.
The nails here in the showcase are examples of more durable materials used for constructing a building. While the timber construction has long since disintegrated, the iron nails remain in the soil.
Whetstones and knives were useful tools for daily life. A knife fastened to the belt was always at hand. It had a multitude of uses, even to eat with. Quite often, it can be seen that the edge of a knife had been honed on the whetstone so many times that it was almost completely worn down. Whetstones were usually made of slate.
A knife was the object that most frequently accompanied the dead in Iron Age burials. Whetstones were also common grave gifts.
The knives had a handle of wood, bone or horn. Usually, the handle has decayed while the iron is left in the ground.
No human could manage without warmth and fire. Fire was struck when fire-striking stones and steel were used to set tinder alight. The fire-steel must be made of tempered steel to strike sparks against a hard stone like flint or quartz. The fire-striking stone could be fastened to a belt with a strap that fitted round the groove on the sides of the stone.
In the showcase, you can see the most common type of finds at settlement sites: fire-cracked stones. They were heated so much that they became brittle and cracked. Heated stones may have been used in cooking pits for food.
Complete artefacts are seldom found at archaeological excavations. Often it is small pieces and fragments of objects for everyday use that had been thrown away and had become rubbish. The remains we do find are things made of durable material. Stone implements, burnt clay from pots or spindle whorls, which have remained in the soil for thousands of years while iron rusts and bronze decays. Bone, wood, textiles and leather are perishable and seldom survive.
There must once have been an infinite amount of tools, traces of craftwork, yarn and cloth that have perished. Based on the fragments we find in the ground, we can imagine what daily life might have been like during the Iron Age.
Iron Age society was based on self-sufficiency. However, some people could accumulate a surplus, leading to growing wealth for a few in society. This affluence created a demand for new necessities, and the supply of commodities from near and far increased. Surplus also provided an income for specialists, for example blacksmiths, who could make equipment for everyday life.
People appear to have had more belongings, at least considering the number of grave gifts found in burials. On the other hand, not so many things are found on settlement sites, not even fragments. Settlement sites seem to have been cleaned when the people left, perhaps a lot of the tools and equipment were reused. The purpose of archaeology is to try to interpret these remains of small pieces and fragments.
A decorated vessel found in a waste pit at a settlement site at Segertorp in Skövde. It is unusual to find a pot in such good condition at settlement sites. Often there are only broken pieces of pots – potsherds. But in burials when the pottery was used for urns, they are often complete.
We do not know if this complete vessel from Skövde was intended as a sacrifice to appease one of the gods. At least, the fine decoration indicates that it was not a plain cooking pot.
Pottery for everyday use at a settlement site varied in size and shape depending on the function. Potsherds in the showcase give an indication that large heavy storage pots were used, perhaps for food or drink.
The quern stone was found at a settlement in Täng. A hand stone was needed as well, to crush and grind the grain against the quern stone. Plain quern stones like this were used throughout the Iron Age. You ground what you needed for the occasion. Naked barley and emmer wheat are lying on the quern stone now – two kinds of heritage cereals grown at present day farms. They did cultivate these kinds in the Iron Age too, but hulled barley was more common. Beer or mead could also be made of barley.
A sickle of iron was a tool used for harvesting grain and meadow grass, or leaves. It was probably also used to cut the straw when thatching a roof.
Bones from butchering animals are among the most common finds at an Iron Age settlement site. The type of soil the bones were buried in determines how much is left. If the soil is rich in lime, which it is in certain parts of Västergötland, the bones are quite well-preserved. On the other hand, if the soil is acidic most of the bones will have decomposed over time.
The animal bones show which kind of meat people ate, the kind of animals that were kept and if fishing and hunting contributed to the diet. Iron Age farms in Västergötland mostly kept cattle and sheep, but also pigs. Milk from both cows and sheep was essential in Iron Age households.
Animal bones in the showcase were recovered from an archaeological excavation at the vicarage in Husaby. Apart from bones of pig, sheep and cattle, there were also fish bones from pike, zander and perch, as well as bird bones from chickens and geese.
The Iron Age hamlet Esketorp in the southeastern parts of Skövde was excavated by archaeologists prior to road construction in 2002. Many traces of buildings and fences, as well as remains of iron working, came to light at this site. It was possible to follow several neighbouring farms situated in the same places over a period of 400 years. The site was situated close to water, which is crucial for humans and animals. Nearby, there was pastureland, fields to cultivate, and meadows that supplied fodder. Fences kept the animals out from meadows and cultivated fields. A short distance away from the farms were burial places for the ancestors and a place of sacrifice.
These few and faint traces are only a fragment of the daily life of over 2000 years ago. Almost everything that went on at the farm is irretrievably lost. However, we can recognise that this was the beginning of a new way of life, organised in a way that came to be fairly unchanged throughout history almost up until our own days.
The settlement site at Esketorp is an example of how cooperation between several farms can make farming more efficient. The long-lasting settlement coincides with a period when there was a noticeable increase in cultivation of cereals in the area. This was most likely a result of a new way of organising the work in combination with new equipment and methods.
The settlement came to an end in the later part of the early Iron Age, some time after AD 400. During the period termed the Migration Period, the people who lived there then moved, but probably not very far. The farms perhaps only moved to a different position, like a “migrating village”. At the end of the Iron Age, around the eleventh century AD, people settled again in exactly the same place and built a new hamlet.
Lumps containing iron ore were gathered from wetlands and from soil. These were smelted into iron bars that could be forged into nails, rivets, knives, scythes, scissors, axes and other tools. The iron was made in furnaces where charcoal, firewood and iron ore were mixed. Worn-out iron tools were hardly ever thrown away; they were remelted into something new. That is why we find so few iron objects at the settlement sites. What we do find is remains of furnaces and slag that flowed out of the furnaces when the iron was smelted. Furnaces are discovered near almost all of the settlement sites excavated by archaeologists.
The knowledge needed for making iron appears to have been common, and spread rapidly over large areas. Several stages of work were involved in the process of making iron. The blacksmith who forged the iron did perhaps not always take part in all the stages of the work, and there was not necessarily a blacksmith at every farm. Blacksmiths may have travelled around to farms and forged the iron that had been processed by the people of the farm. With an increased demand for iron, the search for iron ore to smelt into iron appears to have gradually moved further away from the settlements, to more remote parts.
When the Roman Empire was at its peak around the Mediterranean in the first centuries AD, the territory of the empire reached far north into present day Germany. Here, in Västergötland, there are plenty of imported artefacts from the Roman Empire. An affluent aristocracy showed their superiority by embracing Roman culture. They drank wine from glass vessels served from bronze jugs. They imported ornaments, Roman weapons, and even animals such as greyhounds, domestic cats and chickens.
The fashion of clothes changed. Women of the Västergötland aristocracy started wearing tube-shaped dresses which were held together with two oval brooches below the shoulders. A third brooch on her chest kept a shawl or cloak together, and a necklace of beads was fastened with a silver clasp at her throat. The attire was perfected with a hair needle keeping her elegant coiffure in place, or perhaps a head shawl.
The 50-year-old woman in the grave belonged to this Västergötland aristocracy. She lived in Skultorp 1,800 years ago. Her body was not cremated. Instead, she was buried in her fine clothes with her own personal ornaments in a large stone setting. However, the grave was not new. It had been built during the Bronze Age. Reuse of earlier graves in this manner was very common in the Iron Age.
In the period that we call the Roman Iron Age (AD 0-400), the custom of inhumation burials returned; that is, burying the corpse without burning it. Cremation had been the normal burial custom for a period of over 1,000 years, and was still the most common way. Nevertheless, a small proportion of adults from the elite of society were interred without having been cremated. We do not know why. Perhaps they had some specific function in society and were therefore given special treatment when they died. Inhumation graves occur particularly in the rich farmland around Billingen.
The cause of death is seldom obvious in skeletons found in the graves, although there are exceptions. In a grave dating from the sixth century AD in Eggby, the remains of a man were discovered; he was 25-30 years old when he died and 179 centimetres in length. His head had been hewn by a sword or an axe and his right temple was crushed. Around the injury where he was struck, the skull is still coloured red from clotted blood. Evidently death was instant since there is no trace of healing.
Various injuries, diseases and age-related changes can often be seen in the bones. An elderly man in one of the larger graves excavated in Borgunda in 2002 had severe arthritis in his hip joint. The left hip joint was thoroughly damaged while the right hip seemed to be in good condition. If he had lived today, he would have had a hip replacement operation – a routine procedure for present-day surgeons. In the showcase, you can compare the damaged hip joint (to the left) with a healthy joint.
The height of a person can be determined by measuring, for example, the length of the thigh bone. There are formulas for calculating approximately how tall a person was in life. Since there is a certain connection between the average body length of a population and living conditions, it is interesting to study how body length varied between different historical periods. However, it is mainly genetics that govern how tall we grow.
The thigh bones in the showcase come from a woman who was 160 centimetres in height and a man who was 170 centimetres, both lived in Västergötland at the end of the Iron Age. This corresponds to the average height for women and men at that time. Based on measurements of bones, we see that those who had not been cremated but were buried in large stone cairns were among the tallest persons in the period AD 0-200. The reason for this was probably that only persons from the upper levels of society were buried in these graves.
At the large burial fields with cremation burials dating from around the first centuries AD and BC, burial customs appear to have been fairly uniform where males and females of all ages were treated equally. In these burial fields, there are plenty of cremated remains of infants. The entire population seems to be represented. This provides us with an opportunity to study child mortality rates, how old people were when they died, and the average length of life in a population 2,000 years ago.
Around a third of the children died during their first year. Children also died before they were 10-12 years old, but the proportion of teenagers who died was very low. Those who survived childhood and the many children’s diseases had a good chance of living into adulthood. Among adults, most of the women died in their fertile years, between 20-40 years of age. A greater proportion of men became older.
A heat of over 800 degrees was required for cremation. Only about 2-3 litres of mineralised bone were left after an adult human was cremated. Even if the remains are severely fragmented, it is still possible to identify many of the bones and determine which part of the body they belonged to. It is also possible to determine whether it was a man or a woman, and how old they were when they died. Cremated bones are much better preserved in the soil than unburnt bones. On the lower shelf, you can see burnt bones from an Iron Age grave in Velinga.
Remains of animals are found in many of the burials; they were placed there as grave gifts. The most common animal is dog, but sometimes also horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and a variety of birds and fish. In a large barrow at Sunnerby on Kållandsö, the cremated remains of at least seven dogs of various types and sizes were identified. You can see some of these dog bones on the upper shelf.
The Fire of Death
Burial customs and treatment of corpses have varied over thousands of years.
During the Iron Age the dead were often cremated. The burnt remains were gathered into an urn which was buried at the burial site near the farm. The burial was covered by a stone, a mound of soil or a cairn that may have varied in shape.
Even though we have discovered thousands of graves from this period, we still lack traces of most of all the people who lived here.
Maybe it was not for all to be buried at the farm burial ground.
During the first few hundred years of the Iron Age (500-0 BC), the burial customs in Västergötland were remarkably uniform; there were no distinct markers of status. From this period, we find large burial sites with hundreds of similar small pits in the ground, filled with the cremated remains of the deceased from a farm. Usually, the burnt remains were gathered into a ceramic pot or a wooden box, but sometimes there is no urn. The remains of the funeral pyre, pieces of bone, soot and charcoal, were placed in a pit with no container. The burial was then covered by a stone.
Grave gifts were placed in the burial along with the cremated remains, often iron sickles, used for harvesting leaves, crops or meadow grass. Awls and sewing needles are also common, as well as knives for cutting leather.
A unique occurrence in prehistory is that people of all ages were treated equally when they died during this period. Even infants were buried in a pit at the burial site, just like the adults.
In a stone circle at a small farm burial site in Björkulla, Älgarås, a weapon grave was uncovered during an archaeological excavation in 1982. The find of weapons was unexpected since it was located far from the more populated areas of Västergötland. Probably, routes for travelling between Västergötland and Närke, combined with extraction of iron, made the region around Björkulla into a place of interest from an economical point of view, and therefore worth controlling.
The stone circle consisted of five standing stones. In the centre, there was a layer of burnt bones from an adult man who had been cremated. The burial contained a sword, a spearhead, a knife and parts of a shield, indicating the date of the burial as around AD 300-400.
Artefacts dating from the Iron Age found in various places in Skaraborg. Most of them are personal belongings and gifts placed in graves.
Cruciform brooches made of bronze were common in the sixth century AD. Other objects here are more unusual. Fittings for a horse come from a sacrificial bog in Finnestorp, and the snake-head armlet was found in Lavad. The trefoil brooch is from Floby, and the figure of a man with a moustache in the form of two ravens can be seen on a mount from Sjogerstad. The disc brooch is from Larv.
Hairpins are known from Iron Age settlement areas such as Husaby, Varnhem and Larv. Glass beads and animal teeth were often used as ornaments. An exclusive piece of jewellery was a pendant made of a gold bracteate. This one was found in Vinköl (copy). The gold-glimmering rivets from Såntorp are also uncommon.
Various types of fibulae were used all through the Iron Age. The three fibulae here with a distinct profile were common in Västergötland. The gold fibula is from Husaby. Arabic coins were found together with a small brooch in Österplana, and the English silver coin is from Fyrunga. They are evidence of long-distance contacts and a new age.
The Sparlösa stone is one of Sweden’s most extraordinary rune stones. Presently, it is standing in a small house beside Sparlösa Church. In the seventeenth century, it was part of the south wall of the church. It was taken out of the church wall in 1937, and found to have runes and pictures on all four sides. The runes are from both the early and the late rune alphabet, which is very rare. Most likely, the earlier runes were carved in the eighth century, and then runes were added in the tenth century.
The runes are difficult to interpret and partly worn down, which makes the text hard to understand today. A ship, a house, a rider with a sword, birds, deer and dogs are depicted on the stone. These motifs do not appear to have any coherent context, but probably both the text and pictures relate to stories that were well-known when the stone was carved.
A phrase in the text is ‘runes … from the gods stemmed’. The art of writing was considered to have originated among the gods, and to be a gift from the gods.
On the rune stones, we meet prehistoric persons with a name for the first time ever. Almost 100 names are mentioned on rune stones in Västergötland, around 20 of these are women’s names. The most common names were Tora and Tore. These are pre-Christian names that stayed in use during the early Christian period, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when most of the rune stones of Västergötland were carved.
Christian prayers were commonly carved on the stones. “God save her soul and God’s mother and all God’s angels” is inscribed on one of the stones at Husaby, which was raised by the sons as a memorial of their mother Oluv. Traces of the old Æsir gods are less common. The phrase “Tor vige” on a stone at Velanda in Väne-Åsaka is one of few examples.
This amulet of red soapstone with runes was discovered close to some low barrows while ploughing a field in 1843. It dates from around the year 600.
The ancient Norse inscription …siz alu h is difficult to interpret. We can read the magical formula alu clearly. A more advanced interpretation is: “Be you, stone! a magical spell (alu)” (implicitly against ghosts).
It had been placed in a grave to protect the deceased against evil spirits. We do not know whether it was a general safety measure or if the dead person had any specific reason for extra protection.
In the 1880s, Anders Svensson found a bronze crucifix by the side of the barrows Karla högar in Västerbitterna. He sold it to apothecary Hjort in Vara from whom the museum acquired it in the beginning of the twentieth century. The figure of Christ has an equal-armed crucifix above his head and a round object, possibly a skull, under his left foot. The crucifix is double-sided, and is an imitation of a Byzantian encolpia, which is a reliquary with Christ on the front and Mary praying on the back. The classical praying position with outstretched arms was unknown in Scandinavia and was thought to be the back of crucified Christ.
On a partially damaged pendant in the form of a crucifix, possibly from Varnhem, there is an entirely different depiction of Christ. With a large round head and arms raised upwards, separated knees and crossed ancles, the figure is reminiscent of other northwest European pictures of Christ.
When women married, they became responsible for keeping the household in order. The keys of the house were symbolically and decoratively part of her clothing, and a proof of her status. Women had a respected standing and a multitude of tasks. She made sure that there was food on the table and clothes for the family. Together with the other women of the family, and the thralls of the farm, she looked after the farm animals and made textiles of wool and flax. Making sails for Viking ships required just as much work and resources as the timberwork of the ship.
This key came to light at an excavation in a farmyard at Brunsbo. We do not know whether it belonged to a housewife at the early Bishop’s Residence or an even earlier farm.
A sharp implement with one end shaped as a bishop’s crozier: “discovered in 1880 when digging at shoemaker Bergman’s plot”.
For many years, it was thought to be a stylus, but now it is considered to be an aestel or pointer. It was used to follow the rows and keep one’s place in a mass-book. Probably to save the valuable text from wear, but also to give the reading more of a ceremonial setting. Possibly, the bishop had assistant ministers for the Mass who could use the pointer to help him read.
The use of pointers is known in Europe even from the early Christian period, and our aestel points out the way to the church dominance that came to be part of the medieval history of Västergötland and Skara.
CHRISTIAN VIKINGS
People from Västergötland encountered the new religion – Christianity – as early as the tenth century. That is why remains of the Viking Age are different here compared with other parts of Sweden.
In Västergötland, there are no Viking Age cremation graves with extravagant grave gifts like those commonly found in, for example, the region of Lake Mälaren.
The Christian graves in Västergötland are almost empty and the inhumated remains have disintegrated.
Nevertheless, these parts were wealthy and well-populated during the Viking Age. This is evident when we see the many churches that were built in the eleventh century at the beginning of the Middle Ages.
