Half a year ago I gave a talk about sacrificial sites to a Bronze Age seminar at the Stockholm County Museum. Now the contributions have appeared in a fine little volume in Swedish that can be read on-line for free or mail-ordered from the museum. Thanks, editors, for swift and accurate work!
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Would it be possible to restore the burial mounds to the (presumed) orignal look -with an outer shell of peat-like topsoil stacked around the stone structure [at least, that is how I was taught the originals looked like]?
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A news item to drive the Americans insane with the Clovis/pre-Clovis debate:
"Paleo-Indians settled North America earlier than thought: study"
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-paleo-indians-north-america-earlier…
The rule for Early Bronze Age burial is basically turf mounds in Medieval Denmark, Småland and Götaland; rock cairns in Svealand, Gotland and Norrland.
The cairn on the book cover is at Smara near Norrtälje.
One question I have wondered much about is, did the northern limit for farming oscillate much, as indicated by large communal works like the cairns? The pre-pastoralism lapps were few and far between, they would not have had much manpower for hauling stone (pollen in peat bogs might help tracking domesticated plants, *if* you have the resources...). The reach of prehistorical farming in North America is probably better known than in northern Europe.
We have a big rock cairn at Ãnäset*, between UmeÃ¥ and SkellefteÃ¥. Are there any large cairns further north, indicating (relatively) high population density? Unlike Norway or north-west USA, this coast does not provide a cornucopia of fish, apart from salmon migration. Bronze-age Stockholm county must have been much more hospitable.
(* home of the quite strong Västerbotten cheese)
did the northern limit for farming oscillate much
Define "much". First the agricultural Funnel Beaker Culture rapidly covered Sweden up to River Dalälven. Then it backed off and much of Götaland & Svealand was taken over by the non-agricultural Pitted Ware Culture for the 500 years of the Middle Neolithic A. From the Middle Neolithic B onward it's pretty much been steady advance northwards from Scania.
I haven't got the book with the cairn distribution map here right now, but I'll get back to you.