Wetlands and Ritual Deposits during the Neolithic

A Local Study in a Micro-environment of a Macro-phenomenon

Abstract

Recent discourse on the relationship between society and landscape has shown that interpretation should not be attempted solely through consideration of artificial monuments; it also needs to involve the natural landscapes. The role of wetlands as a place of contact with the spiritual world was clearly important during the Neolithic. In order to obtain a more detailed and hopefully more holistic understanding of votive deposition in Neolithic society an area in the southernmost part of Sweden was chosen for further study. The area contains a complex range of landscape features, the understanding of which is fundamental to the analysis of wetland depositions. The landscape is mainly undulating and the wetlands are usually rather small in size. Field survey along with information gained from several farm collections means that the find locations of a considerable number of archaeological deposits are now known. From the perspective of the Neolithic period, almost every wetland was used for some form of votive deposition. In certain respects, the cosmology related to wetland offerings was active throughout most of the Neolithic, and also in later periods. Some wetlands appear to have been imbued with ideas of a sacred character over many centuries, and in some cases millennia. Votive depositions within the hummocky landscape are usually rather small-scale, with the more substantial depositions being found in the larger wetlands on the plain. This might indicate that wetlands in different kinds of landscapes could have special importance in the metaphysical world.