page_title: Wetland deposits in Scandinavia
section_title: Neolithic
hierarchical_section_title: Wetland deposits in Scandinavia / Neolithic
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Tunn-nackig flintyxa. Skåne
context_page_description: In many areas of Scandinavia, a wide variety of items were deposited in lakes and bogs from the Mesolithic period through to the Middle Ages. Such items include earthenware, decorative metalwork, weapons, and human corpses, known as bog bodies. As Kaul noted, "we cannot get away from the fact that the depositions in the bogs were connected with the ritual/religious sphere."
  The earliest examples of wetland deposits from Scandinavia come from the Mesolithic, including elk bones and earthenware vessels. In the Neolithic, earthenware vessels and flint axes were deposited in the wetlands, with a number of wooden platforms being constructed to allow greater access to the wetlands themselves. In the Bronze Age, a wide variety of different items were placed into bogs, although the levels of deposition fluctuated throughout the period. It also witnessed the deposition of several high-value metal items, including the Trundholm sun chariot and a number of lurs and shields. The Pre-Roman Iron Age witnessed the continued deposition of these high-status item, including decorated metal cauldrons, most notably the Gundestrup Cauldron.
context_section_description: In a number of cases, it has been shown that Neolithic settlements were located very close to the edge of a bog or lake, in some instances where items from the same period had been deposited. These settlements were likely inhabited on a seasonal basis, from where people hunted and fished but also brought domestic animals with them. For instance, at Storelyng IV, a site in the Central Sealand Åmose which is dated to c.3400 BCE, archaeological evidence indicates that a community arrived there in mid-May, where they hunted, fished, and gathered shellfish in the adjacent lake, before slaughtering a number of goats that they had brought with them and departing in mid-August.
  A characteristic of Early Neolithic depositions is the placing of earthenware vessels near to the banks of a lake, something which may have parallels in the latter part of the preceding Mesolithic Ertebølle culture. This tradition was carried out for around a thousand years, from c.4000 BCE to shortly before 3000 BCE, when the practice largely died out. Archaeological analysis of burnt remains of food on the inside of some of the earthenware funnel beakers from this period reveals that they contained a fish soup, although traces of acorn have also been identified. It is unclear whether these earthenware items were actually deposited in the water with food in them, or whether this had been consumed or otherwise removed beforehand.
  In many cases, animal bones have also been deposited alongside the earthenware. Zooarchaeological analysis of the bones have revealed that sheep or goats are well represented in the assemblages, with domestic ox also being common, although both pig and wild animals like red deer and roe deer have also been found. The bones have often been split, so as to allow bone marrow extraction, suggesting that the animals had been eaten prior to the deposition of the bones. These assemblages are often interpreted as the result of a ritual meals consumed communally, with sheep or goats being of particular symbolic importance at these events, given that their remains are far less common in debris from settlement sites.
  Flint axes were also placed in bogs during the Neolithic, with examples having been identified as belonging to the Early, Middle, and Late periods of this era. In some instances they are associated with earthenware deposits, although in others they are found alone; this is particularly evident in the Scania area, where earthenware deposits are scarce. In various cases, multiple axes were deposited in the same place; one such example was found under controlled excavation conditions at Gamla Wärslätt in Billinge Parish, Scania. Here, four Early Neolithic flint axes were found close to each other, in what had evidently been peat at the time of deposition, for one was found standing vertically, and the other horizontally. It was believed that they had not been deposited together in one event, but independently. In a few instance, it is clear that simple copper axes, which had been imported into Scandinavia from southern Europe, were deposited in wetlands from the Early Neolithic onward.
  In various instances, amber beads were deposited in wetlands; such deposits are particularly in North and North West Jutland. In one case, at Mollerup in Salling, 13,000 small amber beads were found in an Early Neolithic earthenware vessel.
  During the Early Neolithic, many human remains associated with the Funnelbeaker culture were deposited in Scandinavian wetlands. Both entire skeletons and singular skulls have been found; it is unclear if these latter remains were originally deposited without the rest of the body, or whether the rest of the body was simply not discovered. One Neolithic skeleton from Sigersdal in Veksø Bog, west of Copenhagen, was found to have a thin plant fibre cord wound repeatedly around its neck, suggesting the possibility that the individual was strangled before deposition. Similar cords around the neck were found on two other Neolithic bog skeletons, one from Stenstrup Bog in North West Sealand and the other from Bolkilde B
caption: Flint axes were often deposited in wetlands in the Neolithic
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