4,900 Years Ago, Neolithic People Sacrificed Engraved Stones After A Volcanic Eruption
After a large volcanic eruption that occurred around 4,900 years ago, prehistoric people in Scandinavia seemingly sacrificed a collection of engraved stone objects, according to a new study.
A team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen has linked the 5,000-year-old artifacts known as “sun stones” to the volcanic eruption, providing insights into the ritual practices of Neolithic people in Europe and an ancient environmental crisis.
The sun stones were first discovered in 1995 when a few pieces turned up during excavations at Rispebjerg, a Neolithic site on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Nordic Sea.
From 2013 to 2018, more were uncovered in significant numbers at Vasagård, an archaeological site just a few miles from Rispebjerg.
The majority of sun stones were found during these more recent excavations. Archaeologists unearthed approximately 600 whole and fragmented stones at Vasagård.
“One type of find that is completely unique to Bornholm is the so-called sun stones, which are flat shale pieces with engraved patterns and sun motifs. They symbolized fertility and were probably sacrificed to ensure sun and growth,” said Rune Iversen, the co-lead author of the study from the University of Copenhagen.
The sun stones had been deposited into ditches that formed part of a causewayed enclosure. The remains of ritual feasts, represented by animal bones, broken clay vessels, and flint objects, were scattered among the sun stones. Then, the ditches were closed.
Evidence suggests that Neolithic people deposited the stones over a short period around 2900 B.C. The researchers noticed that depictions of the sun were the most common motif.
“Knowing that the sun stones represent a single—or a few—contemporary event(s) and their imagery is focused on the sun, fields, and crops, made us look for potential external courses for this significant deposition event. We were looking for a natural disaster or climatic event that could have affected crop yields or the visibility of the sun,” said Iversen.
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Signs of a volcanic eruption were detected in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica that were analyzed in 2022.
Ice cores preserve details about Earth’s climate and environment over hundreds of thousands of years. The data showed that a powerful eruption took place around 2900 B.C.
It would have had devastating consequences for the Neolithic people living on Bornholm Island at the time. The extra sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere would have caused widespread crop failure, which might explain the sacrifice of the sun stones.
“We have known for a long time that the sun was the focal point for early agricultural cultures we know of in Northern Europe. They farmed the land and depended on the sun to bring home the harvest. If the sun almost disappeared due to mist in the stratosphere for longer periods of time, it would have been extremely frightening for them,” said Iversen.
“It is reasonable to believe that the Neolithic people on Bornholm wanted to protect themselves from further deterioration of the climate by sacrificing sun stones—or perhaps they wanted to show their gratitude that the sun had returned again.”
The study was published in the journal Antiquity.
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