The Transformation of Societies An Eastern Danish Perspective on the 3rd BC Iversen, Rune

Publication date: 2015

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Citation for published version (APA): Iversen, R. (2015). The Transformation of Neolithic Societies: An Eastern Danish Perspective on the BC. Jysk Arkaeologisk Selskab. Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter Vol. 88

Download date: 27. sep.. 2021 The Transformaion of Neolithic Socieies An Eastern Danish Perspecive on the 3rd Millennium BC

Rune Iversen The Transformaion of Neolithic Socieies

1 The Transformaion of Neolithic Socieies An Eastern Danish Perspecive on the 3rd Millennium BC

Rune Iversen

Jutland Archaeological Society

3 The Transformaion of Neolithic Socieies An Eastern Danish Perspecive on the 3rd Millennium BC

Rune Iversen

© The author and Jutland Archaeological Society 2015

ISBN 9788788415995 ISSN 01072854

Jutland Archaeological Society Publicaions vol. 88

Layout and cover: Louise Hilmar English revision: Anne Bloch and David Earle Robinson Printed by Narayana Press Paper: BVS mat, 130 g

Published by: Jutland Archaeological Society Moesgaard DK8270 Højbjerg

Distributed by: Aarhus University Press Langelandsgade 177 DK8200 Aarhus N

Published with inancial support from: Dronning Margrethe II’s Arkæologiske Fond FarumgaardFonden and Lillian og Dan Finks Fond

Cover: The Stuehøj (Harpagers Høj) passage grave, Ølstykke, Zealand Photo by: Jesper Donnis

4 Contents

Preface ...... 7

1. Introduction ...... 9

2. Background ...... 13

A review of Danish research history ...... 13

Setting the scene – in the 3rd millennium BC ...... 15

3. Chronology ...... 19

The chronology of the Middle Neolithic ...... 19 Chronological issues ...... 19 From Funnel Beakers to Corded Ware – transitory shift or lengthy overlap? ...... 21 The Middle Neolithic chronology – revised ...... 24

The transition to the Late Neolithic ...... 27

The end of the Neolithic ...... 29

4. The late Funnel Beaker period and beyond – entering the late Middle Neolithic ...... 33

Material transformations – late Middle Neolithic artefacts ...... 33 Heavy thickbutted int axes ...... 33 Mediumbladed and thinbladed int axes ...... 38 Adzes ...... 39 Chisels ...... 41 Tanged arrowheads ...... 42 Stone artefacts ...... 44 Battleaxes ...... 46 Pottery ...... 50 Amber and bone ornaments ...... 62 Conclusion: Material continuity ...... 63

Structural changes? Settlements, graves and hoards ...... 65 Settlement pattern and subsistence economy ...... 65 Late Middle Neolithic customs ...... 73 Hoards and deposition practices ...... 82

Change, continuity and contact networks during the late Middle Neolithic ...... 88 Change versus continuity ...... 88 Late Middle Neolithic contact networks ...... 92

5. Reintroduction of metal and the Late Neolithic ...... 97

Late Neolithic artefacts: New weapons, int techniques and raw materials ...... 97 Flint daggers ...... 97 Other pressureaked objects ...... 102 Flint axes and chisels ...... 105 Shafthole axes ...... 106 Metal objects of the 3rd millennium BC ...... 108 Late Neolithic pottery ...... 111 Ornaments and clothing ...... 115 Conclusion: New forms and old patterns ...... 116

Late Neolithic settlements, graves and hoards ...... 117 Settlements, houses and subsistence economic practice ...... 117 Burial practices of the Late Neolithic and Earliest Age – continuity and variation ...... 123 Hoards and depositions during the Late Neolithic and Earliest ...... 130

5 Change, continuity and contact networks during the Late Neolithic ...... 133 Change and continuity ...... 133 Late Neolithic contact networks – Bell Beaker and Ún Čtician inuences ...... 136 Conclusion: Change, continuity and contact networks during the Late Neolithic ...... 137

6. The concept of culture and the 3rd millennium BC ...... 139

How to dene and understand culture? ...... 139 A sense of belonging – ethnicity, identity and culture ...... 140

The bigger picture ...... 142

Living cultures? The cultural heterogeneity of southern Scandinavia in the 3rd millennium BC ..... 145 Great traditions, cultural complexes and cultural groups in the Neolithic ...... 145

The cultural development in eastern during the 3rd millennium BC ...... 147 Cultural diversity ...... 147 After the funnel beakers ...... 150 Towards a new cultural homogeneity ...... 153

7. The transformation of Neolithic societies ...... 155

From Neolithic bigmen to Bronze Age chieftains ...... 155 Modes of social organisation ...... 155 Bigmen and small chiefs – modes of social organisation in the 3rd millennium BC ...... 159

An eastern Danish perspective on the 3rd millennium BC ...... 171

Summary ...... 175

Dansk resumé ...... 176

Appendix 1 ...... 177

Appendix 2 ...... 180

Notes ...... 184

Bibliography ...... 185

Catalogue ...... 203

6 Preface

The research presented in this volume represents the outcome of a PhD project con ducted at the SAXO Institute, Department of Archaeology, University of . Thanks to a grant from The Danish Council of Independent Research | Humanities (FKK), I was able to begin my PhD programme in September . I wish to thank staff at the Institute and the Department for welcoming me and for providing a good working atmosphere. Special thanks go to my two supervisors, Professor Klavs Rands borg, University of Copenhagen, and Professor Lars Larsson, Lund University, for their commitment, fruitful discussions and perceptive comments. Furthermore, I would like to thank Professor Mike Parker Pearson, University College London, Professor Mats Larsson, Linnaeus University and Associate Professor Mikkel Sørensen, University of Copenhagen, for their interest and commitment in assessing my dissertation and for their recommendation of a monographic publication. I also wish to thank the Jutland Archaeological Society and publications editor Jesper Laursen for accepting my manuscript and David Earle Robinson and Anne Bloch for revising the English. I am particularly grateful to Lutz Klassen, Head of Research and Investigation at Museum Østjylland for reading my manuscript and providing very detailed, insightful and useful comments. In addition, I wish to express my gratitude to Dronning Margrethe II’s Arkæologiske Fond , Farumgaard-Fonden and Lillian og Dan Finks Fond for nancial support which enabled production of this book. Last but not least I would like to thank my family and friends for their support, useful advice and friendly distraction during the of my dissertation.

7 1. Introduction

This book is about the rd millennium BC in southern as a Danish variant of the international Bell Beaker Scandinavia. The following investigations focus on culture (BB), sometimes termed the Danish Beaker eastern Denmark, but also include the neighbouring culture. regions of western Denmark, southern Sweden, north The rich collection of archaeologically dened ern Germany and beyond. In this context, eastern cultures of the rd millennium BC has, to a major Denmark is dened as the islands of Zealand, Møn, extent, resulted in the adoption of a ‘culturecentric’ Falster and Lolland (g. .). Even though Bornholm approach. Scholars have therefore generally concen is the easternmost part of presentday Denmark, the trated on individual cultures and associated aspects, island was strongly associated with southern Sweden such as culturespecic burial customs, settlement in Neolithic times and therefore did not follow the patterns, pottery styles or classic culturespecic same developments as Zealand and adjacent islands. sites. I do not consider such an approach mistaken, The rd millennium BC was a period of great but standing alone it becomes inadequate if we wish change in most parts of northern and western Eur to understand the wider social and cultural develop ope, where panEuropean phenomena such as the ments of the later Neolithic. Corded Ware and Bell Beaker complexes changed As Single Grave communities spread across the Jut Neo lithic life and prepared the way for the appear land peninsula and succeeded the Funnel Beaker cul ance of Bronze Age societies. The great era of mega ture around BC, eastern Denmark experienced a lithic architecture came to an end as the production diversied and diffuse cultural development. It was and exchange of gold, and bronze objects be not until a few centuries later (around BC) that came the driving force in the development of Copper Single Grave and BattleAxe culture objects became and Bronze Age societies. This development also had accepted in eastern Denmark. From this time onwards a great inuence on southern Scandinavia, where we see a mix of Single Grave, BattleAxe and Pitted the rst Neolithic culture, the Funnel Beaker culture Ware culture elements, together with continued use (FBC), came to an end and a period of great cultural of the old Funnel Beaker megalithic tombs. This het heterogeneity began. erogeneous cultural expression is usually referred In southern Scandinavia, the beginning of the to as ‘the Single Grave culture of the Danish islands’ Neolithic is dened by the presence of domesticated as dened in the s (Becker ) – a term and a crops and the appearance of the Funnel Beaker culture concept that has not been seriously challenged since. around BC; it remained the sole archaeological The aim of this book is to present a new and co culture in the region throughout the th millennium herent understanding of cultural and social develop BC. The eastern parts of Denmark held a dominant ments evident from the late Funnel Beaker period to position within the Funnel Beaker culture as a core the emerging Bronze Age. By analysing the entire rd area for the construction of megalithic tombs. millennium BC, I wish to move beyond the restrictions From around BC we see signicant changes in implied in the study of individual cultural groups and the material culture, including new types of pottery, instead explain the decisive changes that took place in battleaxes, arrowheads, changed settlement patterns, eastern Denmark as part of one long transformation subsistence economic practices and burial customs. process. On the threshold to the nd millennium BC, These changes are generally related to the appearance the Neolithic had come to an end and a new stage of of new Middle Neolithic ‘cultures’, including the Pitted social organisation had begun with the emergence of Ware culture (PWC), the Single Grave culture (SGC) incipient Bronze Age societies. and the SwedishNorwegian BattleAxe culture (BAC). In explaining the signicant process of socio As regards the subsequent Late Neolithic, reference is cultural transformation, three questions are of central often made to an overall Late Neolithic culture as well importance:

9 Fig. 1.1. Southern Scandinavia and the northernmost part of Germany. Eastern Denmark is highlighted. Geographical map: The research programme ‘Settlement and Landscape’. Vendsyssel Læsø

d Thy or im L the Kaegat he t Himmerland Anholt

Djursland

Jutland t Zealand h e

Samsø O Scania r e

s

u

n

d th e G r e a t

B Stevns Funen e l

t Bornholm Lolland Als Møn

Langeland Falster the West Balc Sea Fehmarn Rügen

Schleswig-Holstein

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

The rst relates to a c. year period of archae the overall culturalhistorical setting within which ological ‘invisibility’ between c. BC. What eastern Danish developments took place. happened in eastern Denmark between the end of the Chapter deals with the chronology. According to Funnel Beaker culture and the appearance of elements the accepted south Scandinavian chronology, the rd of the Single Grave culture? millennium BC spans parts of the Middle Neolithic (c. The second is: How do we explain the culturally BC) and the Late Neolithic (c. BC). complex and ‘diffuse’ nal Middle Neolithic period, In this chapter attention is focussed on the duration of c. to BC, from which the Late Neolithic the late Funnel Beaker culture and the potential chron emerged? ological overlap with other Middle Neolithic cultural The third and nal question relates to the signif groups. There is then a discussion of the ending of the icance of metal and how contacts with metalusing Neolithic and the transition to the Bronze Age, argued societies affected the social structure of Neolithic com to have taken place around BC. All dates are munities in eastern Denmark and the rest of southern given in calendar years BC unless otherwise stated. Scandinavia at the end of the rd millennium BC. Chapters and present and analyse the archae These questions are addressed in the subsequent ological record for eastern Denmark as evident from six chapters: publications, catalogues, excavation reports and the The next chapter, chapter , provides a background national register ‘Sites and Monuments’ ( Fund og For- for the study of the rd millennium BC, beginning tidsminder ) administered by the Danish Agency for with a general review of the research history from a Culture. The register contains records of c. , Danish perspective. This is followed by a brief over cultural historical sites from all over Denmark, includ view of European developments in order to present ing submerged localities. The aim here is to look for

10 INTRODUCTION evidence of change and continuity throughout the rd After having considered the process of cultural millennium BC. Chapter deals with the later Middle change, chapter presents an interpretation of the Neolithic (c. BC), while chapter deals with social developments that led to the end of Neo lithic the Late Neolithic and the transition to the Earliest societies and the introduction of new hierarchical Bronze Age (c. BC). The two chapters are modes of social organisation that heralded the emerg organised similarly and together they form the main ing Bronze Age. The chapter begins with an outline body of this book. Both chapters begin with an exam of how to approach social organisation in early socie ination of the relevant artefacts, their chronological ties, inspired by ethnographic studies. Attention then signicance and their distribution. This is followed by turns to a reconstruction of the basic organisation analyses of settlements, subsistence economy, of south Scandinavian Neolithic communities and and depositions. Both chapters conclude with reviews how these changed in accordance with European de of the changes/continuity in material culture and a velopments and increased contacts with metalusing reconstruction of the exchange networks that either societies. Chapter , concludes with a summarising promoted change or secured continuous development. synthesis of the sociocultural developments in east Chapter addresses the concept of culture and be ern Denmark during the rd millennium BC. gins with some theoretical considerations on how to Following the main text are two appendices and dene and understand culture and cultural relation a catalogue, which facilitate reading of the text and in an archaeological perspective. As already present the collected archaeological data used in the indicated, the concept of culture is highly relevant analyses. Appendix comprises a selection of previ when studying the rd millennium BC. It is a topic ously published chronological schemes referred to that requires careful consideration in order to un in the text. Appendix presents a list of radiocarbon derstand and explain the decisive changes that took dates from late Funnel Beaker contexts and serves place within this millennium. In addition, notions as documentation for the chronological discussion such as ethnicity and identity are examined. By the in chapter . The catalogue is divided into ten sep application of the linguistic concepts of pidginisation arate sections (AJ) and includes all eastern Danish and creolisation, this chapter explains the cultural settlements, graves and depositions recorded in the heterogeneity of eastern Denmark and the cultural present study. changes that took place there.

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