Perspective of a Bronze-Age Colony along the Northern Swedish Coastline : A Study about Continuity and Change in the Cairn-Culture

This essay is focused on two coastal cairn areas located at the Gulf of Bothnia just south of Umeå in Västerbotten County. Located between 30 – 50 m above sea level today they are thus removed several km from the shoreline due to land uplift and isostatic processes stemming from the last Ice Age. The cairns have been dated to approximately 1700 – 1500 BC at the beginning of the older Scandinaviean Bronze Age, but several strong evidence that are presented in this study is indicating that many of them are older than that dating to the late Neolithic instead – such as a round morphological shape surrounded by a brim of stones and large cists in the middle. Furthermore, the cairns are situated in an environment that mostly are inhabited by a sub-boreal milieu consisting of deciduous forest with some elements of coniferous forest and surrounded by raised shingle beaches. In trying to grasp after ancient settlement indications this paper thesis also analyzes traits after their whereabouts in the past in relationship to the existing cairns along the VästerbottenCounty’s shoreline. In doing this a GIS-analysis is applied in a Deulauney-cluster comparison. Two of the cairns, one located highest above all other cairns in Norrmjöle is being scrutinized as a “mother cairn” and the other cairn is long, almost formed as a ship and discussed in its symbolic meaning. By doing so, the cairns are also seen in a possible way of being ancient territory land-areas, marking to outsiders to keep out, and may also have been an intricate signal-system, to i.e., be lit in times of harmful situations coming from the sea or by land. The cairns are thus mitigated and seen in relationship with otherplaces in Sweden, namely Tjust area in Bohuslän county, and the resemblances of cairns at Gotland and Öland Islands. Finally, the Finnish Kiukais-axe (Eastern Karelien crossedged chisel) found in close terrain, as well as other findings from Bronze-age to a cluster of cairns dated to 2000 BC, is being investigated as a possibility of an alien southeastern affect in the area in late Neolithic times from Southern Sweden and Österbotten County in Fennoscandia, hence making the territory evaluated in many directions. The paper therefore tries to set the ancient landscape in a context in between these factors and give aholistic overview to interpreted cairn and its ancient meaning patterns in the region, seen in these regional circumstances to unlock its potential settlements hiding. Hence, getting a political, cosmologic and a maritime understanding and whereabouts in relationship to Late-Neolithic times in the area