EAELIEST INHABITANTS. 113 



later or polished stone epoch. No bone or chipped flint or rudely cut stone imple- 

 ments, such as occur in the Danish middens and Belgian and French caves, have 

 hitherto been found in the regions north of the strait formed by the great lakes. 

 The inference is that North Scandinavia was then uninhabited, and not occupied till 

 the polished stone age, objects of that epoch being the oldest there met with. 

 The mammoth and rhinoceros, whose remains are found associated with those of 

 palaeolithic art in the French caverns, are also missing in the peninsula, there having 

 been no time for the men of that age to occupy it at the close of the glacial epoch. 



We do not know the precise time to which must be attributed the remains of 

 the primitive Scandinavians and their industry ; but it no doubt coincides with 

 the gradual withdrawal of the ice formerly covering the land, though Nilsson 

 probably assigns too great an antiquity to the first arrivals. Between the towns 

 of Ystad and Trelleborg, and at Fallsterbo headland on the Baltic, there occurs a 

 sort of wide rampart running east and west, composed of gravels and sand, 

 interrupted here and there, and divided into unequal sections, formed probably at 

 different epochs. It is called the Jaravall, or " Jara Mound," and below the 

 gravels Nilsson has discovered arrow and lance points resting on the bed of old 

 peat formations, now over 7 feet below sea-level. But the Jaravall, formerly 

 supposed to be of old formation, seems to be a recent coast rampart. Two 

 skeletons also were discovered in 1843 in the Stangenas peninsula near Bro, still 

 lying beneath horizontal strata of marine shells, now 105 feet above the sea. But 

 it cannot be shown that these strata are in their original position, and it is 

 uncertain whether or not the skeletons belong to the stone age. 



The burial-places of the joolished stone age are very numerous in Scania, 

 Gotaland, and Bohuslan, but, like the middens, do not occur in the north. There 

 are several forms : stendosar, or dolmens ; hàllkisto)', large graves of raised stones 

 surrounded by earth ; gunggriftcr, or galleries, called also jdtfestugor, or giants* 

 chambers. They are often large enough to contain upwards of twenty bodies, and 

 are either rectangular or round, with flat roofs of granite slabs supporting earth 

 mounds or stone heaps. A long narrow gallery leads to the funeral chamber, and 

 nearly all face south and east. The blocks are never dressed, and the arms and 

 implements found with the bodies (mostly with dolichocephalous crania) all belong 

 to the neolithic ages. At this epoch most sepultures contained necklaces and other 

 ornaments of amber beads. To the same period may perhaps belong the numerous 

 stones shaped into porringers, commonly known as cJfstenar, or " fairy stones." 



Of 36,000 specimens of the stone age found in Sweden up to the year 1874, 

 34,000 came from the southern provinces ; that is, from Gotaland. "When the 

 bronze succeeded the stone age* it was here also that civilisation was chiefly 

 developed, for of the 2,500 bronzes only 150 were found in Svealand, and in the 

 whole of Norrland 2 owlj. To this period belong the hieroglyphic writings, or 

 "rock inscriptions" (hâl/ristningar), occurring here and therein Scania, Gotaland, 

 Swedish Bohusliin, and Norwegian Smaalenene, and which represent fleets, large 

 boats with figure-heads of dragons, waggons, ploughs, oxen, and other animals, 

 warriors, hunters, and seamen. Beautiful bronze vases, ornaments, diadems, now 

 152 



