The weather was getting warmer, in 800-1300 BC. Scientists call it the Medieval Warm Period and it stopped with the start of the Little Ice Age about 1250-1850 BC . The BOHUSLAN, on the Swedish west coast, a group that derive from the Ahrensburgian culture group, from Northern Germany were one of the oldest settlements along the Norwegian coast. They came under an umbrella name of FOSNA, which takes it name from a location in Kristiansund.
These settlements were located close to contemporary seashores but due to constant changes after deglaciation they are now above present day sea level in western Norway.
They represent pure hunter-gatherer culture. Fishing and seal hunting were important for the economy. They created hide covered wooden framed boats.
Digs have found stone tools and the remains of the production of the same. Flake axes, lanceolates and tanged arrowheads.
I remember watching a PBS special on the development of humanity and one of the indicators was the changes in how the stone tools were shaped. Tribes that reinvented, refined, had contact with other stone tool makers learned and grew. Their brains took in this new information and they became better hunters. They tried new techniques and were open to expanding their diet and make cultural changes.
Branches of humanity that didn't make these changes, that continued to resist change eventually died out.
The theory made sense to me. The FOSNA/HENSBACKA culture group
During the Little Ice Age from about 1700-500 BC we have a period of civilization, given the name the NORDIC BRONZE AGE or the Northern Bronze Age. Again, we are still in Scandinavian pre-history.
As healthy groups do the Fosna groups kept expanding, growing, learning, trading and most of all running out of room. Push those extra boys out of the nest, go find your own hut and land to hunt.
We really don't have any information about this culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown because they didn't bother to learn to write anything down on something that would last. But, I'm guessing that age old problem of to many mouths to feed continued and sons went off to claim new territory or start up a war.
We do know that the PRE-ROMAN IRON AGE advanced next.
Why the history lesson? Well, I can trace ancestors back to the 1500s in Sweden. Since groups seldom like to uproot themselves if they have a good thing going I'm taking a wild guess here that my ancestors came from this original Bohuslan stock. I would probably bet money on a DNA test for the males in my family to match some ancient Bohuslan guy.
It's interesting, I was reading a web site where MALE with the surname Baker could take a DNA test and they could tell whether or not they really came from the original Baker stock.
A picture of the BRONZE AGE burial mound looks very much like the one that was in the park, across the street, from our old house, in Madison,. That burial mound had been left by Native American ancestors.
The one in Bronsaldershog vid Gardstanga, Skane, Sweden looked the same.
The newer ancestors of the Bohuslans are considered Scandinavians. We are told they joined the European Bronze Age culture fairly late through trade, but sites show us well preserved objects made of wool, wood and imported Central European bronze and gold. So, good for them, they learned, they were open to trade and here I am sitting at my computer in another continent talking about them.
They liked to create must be in the genes. There are many rock carvings depicting ships and large stone burial monuments known as stone ships suggesting that well ships played a big part in their culture. These rock carvings so a history as far back as that neolithic period of the Hjortspring boat, a plank built canoes that were used for warfare, fishing and trade.
Of course, no written language existed in the Nordic countries during the Bronze Age. The rock carvings have been dated through comparisons with depicted artifacts of bronze axes and swords and a lot of elk.
Oscar Montelius, who coined the term Bronze age divided it into six distinct sub-periods. His absolute chronology, published in 1885 has held up against radiocarbon dating and other than a little dispute about the start of the period as being closer to 1700 BC rather than 1800 BC he was right on the mark.
Those six periods of the Bronze Age were followed by teh Pre-Roman Iron Age. Although, if you research it you are likely to find that there are even broader subdivisions like Early Bronze Age 1700BC -1100 BC and the Late Bronze Age 1100BC to 550 BC.
Roots.........something passed down through the generations through our DNA.............we have a connection to these early ancestors. Maybe if we started kids out, in school, tracing their lineage, learning how these early ancestors survived with only their wits, the skills they developed in a harsh climate, they might appreciate what potential they have within themselves.
These bands of people, tribes, clans, existed pretty much as our early Native Americans did, with the land.
They didn't have the concept of owning land, they made use of it, thanked the spirits for providing for their children and managed to coexist with other bands, tribes and clans of like minded folk.
The Nordic Bronze Age was characterized by a warm climate that began with a change around 2700 BC. You have a warm climate you now have a longer, better growing season. Good farming means more hands on deck so population increases. Life is good. But, mother nature does like to thin the herd and a small change in climate between 850 BC and 760 BC and an even more radial change around 650 BC brought in a deteriorating, wetter and colder climate. Giving, some believe, rise to the legend of the FIMBULWINTER.
"Fimbulvetr is the harsh winter that precedes the end of the world and puts an end to all life on Earth. Fimbulwinter is three successive winters where snow comes in from all directions, without any intervening summer. During this time, there will be innumerable wars and brothers will kill brothers.[1]
The event is described primarily in the Poetic Edda. In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, Odin poses the question to Vafþrúðnir as to who of mankind will survive the Fimbulwinter. Vafþrúðnir responds that Líf and Lífþrasir will survive and that they will live in the forest of Hoddmímis holt.
This mythology might be related to the extreme weather events of 535–536 which resulted in a notable drop in temperature across northern Europe. There have also been several popular ideas about whether or not this particular piece of mythology has a connection to the climate change that occurred in the Nordic countries at the end of the Nordic Bronze Age dating from about 650 BC. Before this climate change, the Nordic countries were considerably warmer.[2]In Denmark, Norway, Sweden and other Nordic countries, the term fimbulvinter is still used to refer to an unusually cold and harsh winter."
Probably a lot of prayers were offered up to the twin gods. Believed to reflect a duality in all things. Where they were worshipped, artifacts have been found, always in pairs. Also, the female goddess or mother goddess was believed to have been widely worshipped (Nerthus).
And, of course, those rock carvers left some depictions of well known gods from later Norse mythology.
Like the male figure carrying what appears to be an axe or hammer. Oh Thor.......or maybe Odin. Of course, if he was missing a hand it was probably Tyr or Ullr. And, why is this important? Because, remnants of the Bronze Age religion and mythology are believed to exist in Germanic mythology and Norse mythology.
Remember your Skinfaxi, Hrimfaxi and Nerthus? Just another link in that ancestor chain.
It's getting wetter, colder, following the herds is more productive for feeding the people then depending on a good crop. They move into the AHRENSBURG CULTURE, 11th- to 10th millennium BC) It's the last of the cold spell at the end of the Weichsel glaciation. It's an UPPER PALEOLITHIC culture during the Younger Dryas, also known as THE BIG FREEZE. Not, terribly long in geologically terms, only about 1300 give or take 70 years. They actually date this stuff by the layers of north European bog peat.
The ANCESTORS settlements were in proximity to the rim of the ICE. The landscape was tundry with bushy arctic white birch and rowan and wild reindeer, was the most important prey. Hunters would have had to roam areas as large as 39,000 square miles.
Stellmoor was a seasonal settlement inhabited primarily during October. Digs have found bones from 650 reindeer. The hunting tool was bow and arrow. Well preserved arrow shafts of pine and arrowheads of flintstone have been found. They even found some intact reindeer skeletons with arrowheads lodged in the chest. And, archaeologists have found circles of stone were were probably the foundations of hide teepees.
We have a couple of settlements that archaeologists have found, the Ahrensburg and Hamburg cultures. A settlement at Jels in Sonderjylland which probably belongs to the Hamburg culture. Another culture of reindeer hunters is the Broome culture from Denmark and the one that I am interested in the settlement at SEGEBRO, near Malmo, Sweden's oldest known settlement.
I leave you now near Malmo. I need to sharpen my arrowhead, I have a date with a reindeer.
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