By the crossroad

Abstract

Due to infrastructural work, Sydsvensk Arkeologi AB conducted an archaeological excavation in 2022 between the Scanian villages Fjälkinge and Gualöv, southern Sweden. The excavation revealed settlements and a cemetery from the Late Neolithic into the Pre-Roman Iron Age. Located at a plausible prehistoric intersection which connects the Lake Ivösjön to the Baltic Sea, and coastal south to the north, the site has the potential to provide new knowledge of ancient road systems and its possibilities for exchange of both ideas and people. The paper explores the buried population and burial tradition from the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age through multiproxy data, combining traditional archaeological and osteological analyses with state-of-the-art biomolecular analyses, and microstratigraphic excavation of urns as well as trace element and lead isotope analysis of metals. The results show how the local environment substantially has affected the spatial distribution of graves and that the prehistoric roads have been important for transferring ideas and commodities from the Baltic inland as well as north to south along the coast. Reinterpretations of cremation pits ...