the religious/social behaviour was intended to serve as a ritual arena where the organization of pre-Christian Viking Age society could be strengthened and confirmed. By creating a concrete link with ancestors, and thus also to a certain place, a history could be claimed. Through the very active ritual reuse of older graves it is probable that even judicial rights could be expressed in relation to a given space and place (Andersson 2005).
From the examples above it is evident that the labour invested in the reuse of Bronze Age monuments in Halland was in some cases very extensive. In Stråvalla the labour invested in the rebuilding of a Bronze Age stone setting almost exceeded the labour originally invested in the actual construction of the monument (Artelius 2004b). To acknowledge such a fact also tells us something about the importance of this very specific pre-Christian Viking Age ritual behaviour. As seen in the examples, the pre-Christian Viking Age reuse of Bronze Age monuments in Halland also appears in other forms than as clear signs of secondary burial.
The archaeological record from Halland reveals that the Late Iron Age reuse of Bronze Age monuments can be divided into something that can be categorized as repeated variations in ritual behaviour. The first and most obvious reuse is the one already mentioned: Viking Age burials were sometimes conducted in direct relation to the graves in much older Bronze Age monuments. There are several examples from the regions in south-western Scandinavia that show that Viking Age burials were conducted in Bronze Age monuments.
The second variation in the reuse of Bronze Age monuments in Halland can be described as the ritual digging of large trenches and shafts in the barrows. From northern Halland there are examples of large shafts dug down into the monuments.
In other examples the archaeological context indicates that large parts of the original monuments had been removed during the Viking Age. In some cases subtle traces of what can be interpreted as secondary burials have been discovered in the trenches, but it is not possible to give a more precise interpretation when it comes to the actual purpose of the digging of trenches and shafts. Judging from the material, however, the trenches and shafts should not be seen as mere traces of plundering. In Värö the shaft had been carefully sealed and the collected objects had been redeposited. It is fair to assume that the digging of shafts and trenches is an indication of a deliberate search for cremated remains of ancestors and objects – remains and objects that could be used in a cult of the past.
I have chosen to label the third variation in the ritual reuse of Bronze Age monuments as traces of ritual feasting. In a couple of cases animal bones have been discovered at the bottom of pits dug into Bronze Age monuments, and radiocarbon dates reveal that the pits had been dug in the Viking Age. It is clear that a lot of labour had been invested in order to be able to deposit the remains of a ritual meal at the very bottom of an “ancient” monument. To my understanding, this behaviour can suggest that ritual meals were an important element in the pre-Christian Viking Age tradition.
A fourth example of Viking Age ritual reuse of Bronze Age monuments can in my opinion be described as traces of large bonfires. There is archaeological evidence to suggest that large fires were lit inside as well as on top of the Bronze Age monuments during the Viking Age. In one of the examples above it seems
that a very large part of a huge stone setting had been removed in order to light a fire – and this in very close relation to the primary grave in the Bronze Age monument.
The archaeological evidence also makes it reasonably clear that certain objects, presumably ones that in the Bronze Age had originally been deposited in relation to burials, have been moved around and sometimes deposited elsewhere in the monument during the pre-Christian Viking Age rituals. Even a small material like that of the few examples indicates that it is also likely that “ancient” urns with cremated remains were relocated within the monuments during the Viking Age.
To a pre-Christian Viking Age population in Halland, the large barrows and cairns probably served as very concrete reminders of a past and of a constant ancestral presence in the landscape. In my interpretation the Viking Age rituals of reuse describe a social/religious strategy that in essence focused on the necessity of creating a history and the maintaining of a pre-Christian ideology. Through the repeated ritual use of “ancient” monuments, a Viking Age population could express a certain identity and social right to a certain area. The old monuments in that sense served as perfect ritual “tools” around which a collective memory could be “invented” in both the mental and the pragmatic physical sense (Hobsbawm 1983; Strömberg 2005, 259). A pre-Christian Viking Age farm population could repeatedly conduct ritual actions to annex ancestors as well as a history, and this in relation to a specific place. Thus, through ritual the people could remind themselves and the surrounding world of their rights to the land and the history. In my interpretation, the Viking Age reuse of Bronze Age monuments that occurred in the province of Halland in the 9th century illustrates that social constructions of a history and a collective memory almost always revolve around a more or less elaborate appropriation of the past, and this for different social/religious reasons.
In the pre-Christian Viking Age the past was used both to create and to uphold collective memories. Through a deliberate and institutionalized memorization, and through ritual, the Viking Age local society could manifest and justify itself ideologically in a number of ways. Members of society, as well as society as a whole, could use the past to enforce ideological stability and to provide for possible social, political or religious development. Especially in periods characterized by social instability and threats of more or less radical change, the active and ritualized use of the past was reconsidered as a great social and/or political resource to society.
Through a repeated and institutionalized ritualized reuse of the past, the order of pre-Christian Viking Age society could be legitimized over and over again. As such, this kind of legitimization was for obvious pragmatic political reasons a social necessity in society in the late Viking Age. Thus, the repeated ritual use of the past can be looked upon as an ideological defence, and from a pre-Christian Viking Age worldview it was probably of great importance in relation to the changes that were heralded in the 10th century by the coming of Christianity.
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Notes on the contributor
Tore Artelius (1954 – 2011) worked for the Swedish National Heritage Board for around 30 years. He also was the president of the Swedish Archaeological Society and a lecturer at Gothenburg University. Artelius had a tremendous knowledge of graves, burial practices and traditions, both for the Swedish prehistory as for the Viking age. This article, which he handed in just weeks before his death, is an absolute testimony of his passion and knowledge.