Truly amazing announcement from the
Norwegian Historical Museum:
In the autumn of 2023, our archaeologists investigated traces of the past outside Fredrikstad. They were surprised to discover more than 40 circular stone graves.
The archaeologists discovered circle after circle made of meticulously placed stones. The circles were approximately one to two meters wide. The stones were laid closely together, just like cobblestones in a street. Several of the graves had a large stone in the center. Beneath these, the archaeologists found remains of pottery and burned bones. After examining the bones, experts could announce the biggest surprise: almost all the graves belonged to children, except for two graves for adults on the outskirts of the burial site.
Most of the children were 3 to 6 years old, a few even younger. The graves date to between 800 and 200 BC, the transition between the Bronze Age and Iron Age. The area has other signs of having been spiritually significant, including a lot of rock art, with several of the boat carvings that archaeologists think represent the ship that carries the sun across the sky.
Archaeologists have not found many graves of young children from prehistoric Europe. Some of those that have been found are in domestic settings, like, under the house floor. This is the only children's cemetery I know of from this period. What does it mean? It looks to me like these children were special in some way. How?
The dark side would be that these children were sacrifices. Ancient Europeans were not in the habit of giving their sacrificial victims such elaborate burials, but one can't rule out a cult in which the children were treated in some very special way before their deaths, like those
offered by the Inca on top of Andean mountains.
But they could have been special in some other way that we don't understand, because this site is nothing like anything we have seen before, and it would be rash to claim we know what went on here.
No comments:
Post a Comment