Uncovering the Stone Age Passage Graves of Sweden

Aug 27, 2023 by Team SÆR

Unfamiliar humans not too different from us

Written by Elin Pirso 2023, BA in Cultural Heritage Studies and BA in Archaeology

The Stone Age is a period in time that seems so far away and foreign to a person alive in 2023. Even the name Stone Age makes one think of flint, big huts and simpler times filled with primitive people. In fact, the Stone Age is a time filled with many fantastic cultures and traditions worldwide. In Sweden, three different cultural groups lived side by side. They were the “Funnelbeaker culture”, the “Pitted Ware culture” and the “Corded Ware culture” (this one is called the “Battle Axe culture” in Swedish). Today I want to tell you more about the Funnelbeaker culture and their impressive megalithic graves. The proof of just how advanced the Funnelbeaker culture was can be found in their fantastic huge megalithic structures, the traces of their settlements, in the jewellery, ritualistic practices and the ceramics these humans left behind. Thousands and thousands of years ago. The Stone Age were definitely harsher times rather than easy, maybe its people were just different from us, and not simpler by any means at all.

MooseLady Sweden

A little bit about the Swedish Stone Age

The younger period of the Stone Age is called the “Farmer Stone Age” in Sweden - 4000-1700 BC. The youngest part of the Stone Age is called the “Farmer Stone Age” because of the specific archaeological finds of farming that took place during these times. What the use of farming meant for the people living during these times, was that they could now stay in one and the same place to raise their cattle, families and lands. When you stay in one place for a longer amount of time, you also bury your loved ones there and make up new ways of dealing with their passing. In the shape of new traditions and rituals taking place, in this sacred place where you have stayed for generations with your once nomadic family. The Funnelbeaker culture got its name after how their ceramics looked like, with funnel-shaped tops.

What is a passage grave really?

Well, as the name might give away they are indeed graves that were erected around 3600-3000 BC, during the earlier part of the Farmer Stone Age. Today you can only see traces of their structural skeletons, but once these looked almost like tiny mound-houses, like hobbit houses. They consist of three main elements, a long entrance, a grave chamber and the surrounding hill or mound. Usually, they have been placed higher up in the landscape, and a bit away from the settlements. There seems to have been a clear distinction between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. They might have also worked as markers in the landscape for outsiders, that there were indeed people powerful enough to build big megalithic structures. They could have also been seen as markers between the settlement with its farming and the wild outdoors, beyond the settlement area. We don’t really know how these people thought about their placement, we only know that there is a pattern and a distinction being made of their location in the landscape. Through archaeological research it is however easy to see that the passage graves were not the “church of the village”, there is a clear distance between the settlements and the grave chambers.

Passage Graves Sweden

Passage Grave layout Passage Grave Sweden

How the completed “skeleton” of the Passage Grave would look without the mound
and how it would look when ready.

Attention put to ritualistic details

There is a very peculiar thing to take notice of when studying the passage graves of Sweden. The long entrance is always pointing in the same direction, whichever angle you come from or whichever Passage Grave you visit. The entrance will point towards the sunrise, in the east and southeast. When the sun is going down, it will be on the other side of these chambers, and in the morning it will light up their entrance once again from the east and southeast. It is truly an amazing discovery, the details and work put into the passage graves.

The dead were put into the chambers like tiny packages. They were placed in a sitting position, wrapped into boar skins or pig skins, and nailed in place with sharp bone needles. The bodies were decorated with amber and tooth pearls, some of these remains have had amber pendants shaped into hammers or axes. The remains would be dragged through the long entrances like a reversed type of birth going back into the darkness and calm of a uterus again. In the chambers, the climate would be very cool and closed off to the outside, which made the bodies decompose very, very slowly. Outside of the entrance have been multiple finds of shards of ceramics, flint, and bones. These findings suggest that there were some types of rituals taking place in honour of the dead and living, maybe in connection to the ancestors joining each other in the realm of the dead. Maybe the passage graves’ entrance functioned as the go-to-place other rituals and celebrations happened as well, outside of burial celebrations. The archaeological finds suggest the ceramic might have been filled with drinks or foods, so sacrifices might have been left there to bring peace to the deceased. What a sight it would have been to be at these locations 5500 years ago.

Funnelbeaker Sweden

How the Funnelbeaker culture wrapped their dead and put them into the grave chambers

Not simple times filled with simple-minded people

It is truly amazing the details put into these structures and the hard work. These rocks weigh between 13-20 tons. Back in the Stone Age, this meant lifting them using manpower. It also shows how advanced and connected to nature these people were, and how socially competent they must have been to construct something like these megalithic chambers. It takes a lot of communication and trust to lift 20-ton stones, time and time again. It takes good collaboration skills to decide how these monuments are best pointed at the sun and what ritualistic measurements are suitable for death. Inside some of the passage graves, bones from 100-130 different individuals have been found, which also shows that the graves were used for many generations and during long periods of time. They were re-used a lot by many people, being placed next to their ancestors. And here they were left, for thousands and thousands of years.

Sources from the 1700s tell us how these kinds of monuments were made by the “real first inhabitants of the north” (the giants). Scholars, nobles and peasants alike agreed to this “fact”. It may also provide an answer to why these monuments have mostly been left alone for all of this time. There are also some reports of people hearing singing coming from inside passage graves or seeing riders in golden saddles, marching around the monuments on their horses.

The Funnelbeaker culture built big houses, farmed land, domesticated animals and organised the uncertain future for their ancestors and their living relatives and loved ones. They were social creatures with the capability to create places worthy of honouring and ritual practices, that two hands alone could never accomplish. They had to deal with saying goodbye to their family members and had to live through the very human experience of not wanting to let go. The people living during the younger period of the Stone Age were different from us, the real question is just how much and in what way. Maybe the biggest divider between us is just circumstance.

Sweden Passage Graves History