Northern Europe: 08 Sweden (E): Neolithic Period (4000-1700 BC), Neolithic Monuments

The Funnelbeaker culture (FBC, 4300-2700 BC) introduced animal husbandry (including cattle, goats, pigs and sheep), arable farming on a limited scale and some copper tools.

The more settled condition encouraged more substantial buildings. The hunter-gatherer multi-family hut was replaced by a single-family daubed house. A house at Mossby, Skurup Municipality, Skåne County, is one of the earliest examples of Funnelbeaker architecture, a rectangular post structure about 12m by 6m, accompanied by burnt daub. The palisade construction found at Dösjebro, Kävlinge Municipality, Skåne County comprised five hundred posts that enclosed an area of about nine acres. Radiocarbon dating of pottery and axes found at the site has dated the site to 2880-2590 BC.

Farmers grew crops by slash and burn, which necessitated repeating the process in a new part of the forest. But the plots were quite small so they could have been located many times before a family had to move. 

Oxen were used to pull four-wheeled carts and ploughs. A pot attributed to the FBC depicting a four-wheeled cart was found in the village of Bronocice in southeast Poland; and a handle of a clay jug shaped as a pair of yoked oxen was found at Krężnica Jara in eastern Poland.

The Pitted Ware people (3500-2300 BC) descended from earlier Scandinavian hunter-gatherers and gradually replaced the Funnelbeaker culture along the coastal areas of southern Scandinavia. From about 2800 BC they co-existed with the Battle Axe/Corded Ware/Single Grave culture (2800-2300 BC), which had succeeded the FBC in southern Scandinavia. By 2300 BC, the Pitted Ware culture had been absorbed by the Battle Axe culture (2800-2300 BC).

The Alvastra pile-dwelling, Ödeshög Municipality, Östergötland County, was built around 3000 BC. It is the only pile-dwelling in Sweden. In east central Sweden and western Sweden, the barbed wire decoration of Bell Beaker pottery is characteristic of the period 2460 to 1990 BC.

The Late Neolithic in southern Scandinavia dates from 2350 to 1700 BC and is also known as the Dagger Period because of the abundance of flint daggers in circulation.

During a major excavation, Fosie IV, Malmö Municipality, Skåne County, several longhouses (2290-1780 BC) together with material from a period spanning from the Late Neolithic to the Iron Age were uncovered.

● Neolithic Monuments

Sweden’s Neolithic monuments can be divided into four groups: Portal tombs/dolmens (burial chambers), passage graves, cist graves, and causewayed enclosures. Dolmens and passage graves usually (and cists sometimes) were buried under mounds of earth and stone. Dolmen burial mounds can be round (round dolmens) or rectangular (long dolmens). In passage tombs the burial chamber is connected by a narrow passage to the exterior of the mound. Cists are small stone-built boxes to hold the bodies of the dead. Causewayed enclosures are sub-circular areas encircled by one or more concentric ditches with banks on their inner sides.