Norrbottn culture group
The Norrbottnian cultural group in the northern Swedish province of Norrbotten is a Neolithic culture on the lower reaches of the Kalixälven and Torne älv , which continues eastwards from the Gulf of Bothnia to the northern coast of the Finnish Ostrobothnia . It existed parallel to the Nordic Bronze Age in the southern regions of Sweden.
Their main form is a heavy, hoe-like stone device made of hard slate , called Norrbottnisches device . It used to be called Rovaniemi hoe after the town of Rovaniemi in northern Finland . Since no agriculture was practiced that far north during the Stone Age , it is assumed that the Norbottnian device could not have been a hoe in the usual sense. The purpose of the device is unclear. Different interpretations see the Norrbottnn device as a device for rough woodwork, as an ice ax, club, part of an animal trap or as a fur processing device. Probably Norrbottnian devices can be dated relatively late and correspond to the southern Scandinavian Middle or Late Neolithic or both phases.
The Norrbottnian device is often roughly slammed and sharpened on the pointed edge, sometimes even on the broad sides. The length can be 50–70 cm, but the rule is 20–30 cm. Specimens were found in all of the Norrland provinces as well as in Dalarna and Uppland far to the south . In the same area, a number of simple forms of tools have been found, to which there are equivalents in the east: double-edged, roughly cut axes and more carefully executed sharpened axes made of rock, as well as cross-edged or hollow-edged, chisel-like devices.
The Norrbottnisehe cultural group was connected with the Norrland slate culture , probably also with the younger comb ceramic culture in Finland.
literature
- Mårten Stenberger : Norrbottn hoes. In: Nordic prehistory. Volume 4: Prehistory of Sweden. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1977, ISBN 3-529-01805-8 , p. 136.