HAMMAR, SWEDEN—Newsweek reports that a Neolithic ceremonial site estimated to be between 5,000 and 5,500 years old has been discovered in southern Sweden. The large causewayed enclosure is thought to have been used as a ritual gathering place by people of the Funnel Beaker culture, based upon intact pottery, flint and horn tools, worked bone, and a fishing hook uncovered at the earthworks. Researchers led by Magnus Artursson of National Historical Museums' The Archaeologists said that the site consists of rows of elongated pits dug in a semicircle on the edge of a wetland. Some of the pits were lined with stones. “These are unique for the Neolithic period in this country,” Artursson explained. “The finds suggest feasts with ritual butchering and deposition of offerings both in the wetland and in the open pits of the enclosure,” he added. The Funnel Beaker people are known to have constructed megalithic structures, and to have made the transition from hunting and gathering to a mix of hunting, fishing, and foraging while also growing wheat and barley and raising cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. To read about sword hilts protruding from the soil at a Viking cemetery in Sweden, go to "Standing Swords."
