Posted on 01/16/2025 5:40:17 AM PST by Red Badger
Archaeologists and climate scientists from the University of Copenhagen can now show that ritual sacrifices of sun stones coincided with a large volcanic eruption that made the sun disappear throughout Northern Europe. This image shows two so-called sun stones, which are small flat shale pieces with finely incised patterns and sun motifs. They are known only from the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Credit: National Museum of Denmark Volcanic eruptions shaped the destinies of ancient European societies, leading to dramatic cultural shifts and the emergence of sun worship practices among Neolithic communities.
Archaeological findings, including the mysterious sun stones from Bornholm, shed light on how our ancestors responded to climate-induced challenges with ritualistic fervor.
Volcanic Impact on Ancient Civilizations
Volcanic eruptions throughout history have profoundly impacted human societies, often triggering cold weather, reduced sunlight, and poor harvests. For example, in 43 BC, a volcanic eruption in Alaska released large amounts of sulfur into the stratosphere, leading to years of failed harvests across the Mediterranean region. This environmental disruption caused widespread famine and disease, as documented in ancient Greek and Roman writings.
Although the Neolithic period lacks written records, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have analyzed ice cores from Greenland. Their findings reveal evidence of a major volcanic eruption around 2,900 BC. This event likely brought similar catastrophic consequences for the Neolithic communities of Northern Europe, whose survival heavily relied on agriculture.
Neolithic Sun Stones: A Ritual Response to Climate Change
This new insight into a climate episode in the Neolithic period has led archaeologists from the University of Copenhagen, the National Museum of Denmark and the Museum of Bornholm to view their findings of so-called “sun stones” from the Neolithic Vasagård site on Bornholm in a new light, and they have just published a scientific article on the phenomenon in the journal Antiquity:
“We have known for a long time that the sun was the focal point for the 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,” says archaeologist Rune Iversen from the University of Copenhagen, who has participated in the excavations at the site led by the Museum of Bornholm and the National Museum. He adds:
“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. Sun stones were found in large quantities at the Vasagård West site, where residents deposited them in ditches forming part of a causewayed enclosure together with the remains of ritual feasts in the form of animal bones, broken clay vessels, and flint objects around 2,900 BC. The ditches were subsequently closed.”
Rune Iversen and his colleagues believe that there is a very high probability that there is a connection between the volcanic eruption, the subsequent climate changes, and the discovery of the ritual sun stone sacrifices.
“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.”
Island of Bornholm Map
The archaeological site Vasagård is located on Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Credit: University of Copenhagen
Shifts in Neolithic Cultures and Traditions
As if an acute climate deterioration around 2,900 BC was not enough, Northern European Neolithic cultures were also affected by other disasters; New DNA studies of human bones have shown that the plague was very widespread and fatal.
During the same period when the Neolithic people were affected by both climate change and disease, archaeologists can also document a shift in the traditions they had held on to for a long time. The so-called Funnel Beaker Culture, which had been dominant until about 5,000 years ago with its characteristic ceramics and passage graves, was gradually disappearing.
“At the causewayed enclosure we have excavated on Bornholm, we can also see that, after the sacrifice of the sun stones, the residents changed the structure of the site so that instead of sacrificial ditches it was provided with extensive rows of palisades and circular cult houses. We do not know why, but it is reasonable to believe that the dramatic climatic changes they had been exposed to would have played a role in some way, Rune Iversen concludes.
Ancient Sun Worship in Neolithic Scandinavia
Four of the sun stones from Vasagård on Bornholm can be experienced from 28 January in the prehistoric exhibition at The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. They probably exemplify one of the earliest depositional practices connected to a Neolithic sun-cult in South Scandinavia, which are also known from the Nordic Bronze Age with objects like the sun chariot.
“The sunstones are completely unique, also in a European context. The closest we get to a similar sun cult in the Neolithic is some passage graves in southern Scandinavia or henge structures like Stonehenge in England, which some researchers associate with the sun. With the sun stones, there is in my mind no doubt. It is quite simply an incredible discovery, which demonstrates that depositions honoring the sun is an ancient phenomenon, which we encounter again in South Scandinavia during the climate disaster caused by a volcanic eruption in the year 536 AD, where several large gold hoards were deposited as sacrifices,” says Lasse Vilien Sørensen, who is senior researcher at The National Museum of Denmark and co-author of the research paper.
Evidence of Ancient Climate Challenges
The researchers can document reduced radiation from the sun and consequent cooling, which can be traced in both the United States and Europe around 2,900 BC.
Dendrochronological analyses of fossil wood show signs of frost in the spring and summer months both before and after 2,900 BC.
Additionally, ice cores from the Greenland ice cap and Antarctica contain sulfur, which is a sign of the occurrence of a strong volcanic eruption.
Reference:
“Sun stones and the darkened sun: Neolithic miniature art from the island of Bornholm, Denmark”
16 January 2025, Antiquity.
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2024.217
But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned.............
Love to see the evidence for that. To my mind that interpretation is conjecture.
In Scandinavia, I’d worship the sun, too!
Every time archaeologists dig up something they can’t explain, out comes the ‘fertility’ and ‘religious’ explanation. Never fails.
I would imagine 5000 years from now, future archaeologists dig up a video game controller with all its geometric markings and raised dots on it and they will say it was probably a ritualistic fertility device used in a religious ceremony.... .............................
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf1A8Ukk5Us
Thanks Red Badger. Nice twofer!
The rest of the sunstone keywords, sorted:
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
“Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.” - Robert Heinlein..............
You must keep the god of death sated with regular feedings.
Otherwise, he gets really hungry and creates a disaster so he can binge.
At least, that’s what the “experts” of the time recommended.
Now we know that human sacrifice will not prevent volcanic eruptions.
Unfortunately, we still have “experts”.
Stones would play inside her head,
And where she slept, they made her bed.
And she would ache for love and get
But stones.
They weren't sun stones, they were prehistoric tokens for access to the world wide web...
I see spider webs too.
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