Chapter 1
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the Zuider Zee, and there is no doubt that the larger culture is, despite the tombs, closely linked with--one might even say founded upon--the contemporary, but non-megalithic civilization of Central Europe. Moreover, this northern province is culturally quite distinct from the western megalithic provinces where the typical Scandinavian tomb-equipment is lacking. Only the custom of megalith-building unites the Atlantic and the Northern European megalithic civilizations, and megalith-building, as can be demonstrated in Scandinavia itself, is a curiously localized and capricious fashion. It is better, therefore, since these two great civilizations of Northern and Western Europe are in other respects dissimilar, to explain their megalithic tombs as being due rather to a common stimulus from the Mediterranean world than to invention and enterprise in the north. (1) On the whole, then, the rise of the megalithic culture in Scandinavia should probably be read as the result of outside influence--and by influence is meant the ordinary results of trade and minor adventurous enterprises--acting upon the descendants of the Ertebölle people, for there does not seem to be any compelling reason to suppose that a large and sudden invasion of a new folk is involved.
An invasion, however, is the most probable explanation of the origin of another people who appear in Scandinavia during the period of the megaliths. These are the 'Single Grave' folk whose burial-practice, as the name implies, was directly opposed to that of the megalithic people who favoured communal burial in a large tomb. The Single Graves were almost as unpretentious as the megaliths were grand, for they were nothing but tiny mounds covering a body laid on its side or back in a clumsy oval or rectangular enclosure of big pebbles. Furthermore, the tomb-furniture is entirely different from that of the big communal graves, characteristic finds in the Single Graves being stone battle-axes and beaker pottery with cord-ornament. In Jutland these graves are found in the central and south-western part of the peninsula, whereas the megaliths are clustered in the northern part and along the eastern coast. Single Graves of the same type as those in Jutland have been found in the extreme south of Sweden, and many battle-axes of related forms have been discovered elsewhere in that country; there are also graves and battleaxes representing a parallel culture in Finland.
The explanation that best fits the facts assumes the Danish
1. I have written something on this subject in my little book, The Axe Age, London, 1925, Ch. IV.
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Single Graves to be a later and distinct manifestation of an alien 'Battle-Axe Culture' that is represented in Finland by an earlier and separate invasion. This culture is thought to have originated in Central Europe--where the copper battle-axes of Hungary perhaps served as models for the stone battle-axes that give the culture its name-under an influence coming from South Russia or Asia. It then spread northwards by various movements, and thus it is that the Danish graves seem to represent newcomers travelling by the Elbe-valley route, while the Finland Battle-Axe Culture is likely to be the result of a direct and different movement to the Baltic by a route leading through the Danzig neighbourhood. In Sweden the new culture seems to be due to a separate branch of this Baltic invasion, launched perhaps from north-east Germany.
This interpretation, however, does not hold the field unchallenged. For it has been argued that the Battle-Axe Culture in Scandinavia is not of Central European origin, (1) but is rather an indigenous Nordic civilization having its roots in the Ertebölle culture. Thus it is asked whether it is not likely, if the communal graves represent a foreign custom, that the single graves might well be the ordinary native burial-places: and, furthermore, it is contended that some of the Danish Single Graves are at least as old as the Dolmen Period, (2) that is to say the earliest stage of the Megalithic Culture, and that a study of the pottery can provide the necessary link between the Ertebölle Culture and that of the Single Graves. Moreover, it is argued that a map showing the distribution of the battle-axes suggests a northern centre of expansion. Such arguments, however, seem to lose importance in face of the decisive fact that the Battle-Axe Cultures of Denmark, Sweden, and Finland are so far different from one another that a common origin in the north itself is in the highest degree unlikely, and that in each area it is not hard to find plain evidence of continental sources that suggest separate invasions from north Germany and the eastern Baltic coast. It is possible, naturally, to admit the existence of an indigenous element in both the Battle-Axe Culture and the Megalithic Culture, particularly in the last-named, since there is good reason
1. The chief exponent of this view is Gunnar Ekholm; see, for instance, Uppsala Univ. U+00Årsskrift, 1916, I (Studier i Upplands bebyggelsehistoria), p. 92, and Fornvännen, 1926, p. 422. A convenient expression of the orthodox view will be found in that admirable compilation (one of the best general works on prehistoric Europe) De Förhistoriska Tiderna i Europa, Stockholm, 1927, Chap. VIII (C. A. Nordman).
2. Aarb., 1917, p. 131.
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to suppose, as has been said, that the Ertebölle folk survived into the Megalithic Period; but no argument hitherto adduced lessens the probability that the Battle-Axe Culture was imposed on these northern lands by invading hosts. It only remains, therefore, to note here that battle-axes representing both the Danish and the Baltic invasion found their way into Norway, but without the accompanying characteristic pottery, so that it must have been at second hand that the stimulus of this new culture reached that country. (1)
No new invasion, so far as can be determined, brought about the establishment of the full Bronze Age in Scandinavia. But this period, lasting from 1800 B.C. to about 600 B.C., is a time wherein a medley of extraneous influences was profoundly altering the northern culture. The strongest link remains always, it is true, with Central Europe, and Hungary is considered to have been the source of much of the raw metal that was used in the north before the native copper resources were exploited; but despite this general attachment to Central Europe, and to the Aunjetitz Culture in particular, there are many other influences discernible, their variety being customarily explained on the grounds that the newly established amber-trade introduced the men of the north to fashions current in far-off lands.
One of the earliest of these culture-contacts, one that was in fact established considerably earlier than the beginning of the Bronze Age, is that between the north and the British Isles. Indeed, it might almost be said that during the late Stone Age eastern England shared in the north German and Baltic Culture-Province, while at the very end of the Megalithic Period the 'porthole entrance' in the Swedish cists has been thought to stand as evidence of a connexion through the medium of north Germany and north France with megalithic Brittany and western England, districts that were at that time included in an Atlantic Culture-Province. In the Bronze Age, however, a less equivocal link with Great Britain is the finding of flat metal axes of an
1. The archaeologist should not fail to note Otto Rydbeck's interpretation of the Stone Age in Scandinavia. This author distinguishes three main cultures: A, the original Dwelling-Place, or Hunting, Folk; B, the 'Megalith', or Agricultural, Folk from western Europe who arrived c. 2700 B.C.; C, the 'Battle-Axe' Folk who arrived from central Europe c. 1800 B.C. He maintains that culture A persists in recognizable form in N. Sweden and Norway after the superposition of cultures B and C in S. Sweden and Denmark. See K. Hum. Vet. Lund ArsberÅttelse, 1928, p. 35; Fornvännen, 1930, p. 25; Acta Archaeologica, I, 1930, p. 55 (in English).
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English-looking type in Denmark, while, for a rather later period, there is the discovery in the same country of two gold lunulae of the Irish kind. But there were other influences of an equal, if not greater, importance. Thus, Italian axes and an Italian fashion in swords, attest cultural relations extending across the Alps into the north Italian plain, while there is also small doubt of a connexion in the early Bronze Age between the north and the cultures of the Aegean world, this being discernible not merely in a few imported articles, but, it is thought, in the ornament that was used to decorate many of the northern bronzes.
New fashions of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia are the oaktree coffin burials, a northern custom that is found also on the eastern shores of England, and the gradual introduction of cremation and of urn-field burials. Of a high interest, too, is the appearance at the end of the Bronze Age of 'Boat Graves'. These are found most of all in the island of Gotland, where over eighty are known. They consist of large enclosures, some over a hundred feet in length, in the shape of a ship, and are edged by big standing stones
The northern ship of the Bronze Age, as pictured on the rock-carvings of the Bohuslän province of Sweden (Fig. 10), had a curious bifid prow, (1) but in other respects it so closely resembles the viking boat of later days, that it will inevitably
1. For some interesting analogies see Man, 1928; 1, 41), 78).
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