Posted on 04/26/2007 3:39:08 PM PDT by blam
Stone Age remains found in Gothenburg
Published: 26th April 2007 15:27 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/7123/
Archaeologists in Gothenburg have found the remains of an early Stone Age house.
The discovery was made on a building site in the Kallebäck area of the city. Residents of the new apartments being built in the area will be living on a site inhabited 10,000 years ago.
Kallebäck now lies about 5 kilometres from the open sea, but in the stone age the area was a headland jutting out into the sea.
"They most probably fished, and would certainly have hunted for seal. This was right at the end of a headland, and this means that there was access to animals for hunting," said archaeologist Ulf Ragnesten.
The discovery is the first of its kind in the region. Gothenburg itself was founded in 1621, but people first came to the area around 12,000 years ago.
The site has also yielded comparatively recent archaeological finds, with Iron Age remains from between 600 BC to 1 AD.
"These are also interesting, but when we reached lower levels we found the Stone Age parts."
Among the discoveries are cooking holes, grates, an arrowhead, axes and postholes.
"We have known that there were ancient remains at the site since the late eighties, and now that homes are to be built here we have had to excavate the site," said Ragnesten.
GGG Ping.
Ocean levels have dropped? Maybe we should melt some more glaciers to get the sea level back to it’s normal level.
I didn’t know Robert Byrd was vacationing in Sweden!
Where is everybody then? At a potential growth rate of say 1% there should be “how many” people around in Sweden over the ten thousand years????
“I’m sure they still use stone in Gote:burg for building, but not for weapons, at least not for military weapons. Its a few clicks from W.C. Maye you have something to say about this WesternCulture, son of the Geats!”
- To begin with, thanks for posting this article pertaining to my home city and thanks for asking me to comment on this issue!
To think my home city is actually 12 000 years older than I’ve been aware of!
Yes, we still use stone for building in Sweden. Swedish granite is a very suitable building material and has also been widely used throughout the world for paving streets (although this use, of course, isn’t especially common these days).
Evert Taube ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evert_Taube ), one of Sweden’s most celebrated 20th century artists, born on Vinga, a small island in the archipelago of Gothenburg, touched on this fact in a popular song. In this particular piece of work, he sings about a sailor who crosses the Atlantic Ocean (like Taube himself did in his youth, what an adventure it must have been during the early 20th century!)and upon arriving in Buenos Aires discovers that the streets are paved with granite from his beloved Bohuslän (where Vinga is situated).
My family has some ties to Kallebäck in fact. My parents lived and worked (at a cheese warehouse) there when they studied at The University of Gothenburg back in the 1960’s.
More info about Kallebäck if anyone would be interested;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalleb%C3%A4ck
Best of regards,
WesternCulture
- Today, Metropolitan Gothenburg has just below 1 000 000 inhabitants. But, perhaps there ought to be more of us around than this.
I can think of several reasons to why Gothenburg hasn’t developed into a major European city, despite the excellent preconditions that actually exist:
- A lot of people emigrated from Southern Scandinavia about 1000-1200 years ago. Yes, I’m referring to the Vikings.
- A lively city developed in the early Middle Ages close to where modern Gothenburg was founded in 1621. However, this city was a severe threat to the Danes, because IF Sweden would be successful building a well defended, major harbor city there, Swedish ships would not have to pass the Öre straight (Öresund) which at that time was controlled by Denmark. This would mean the end of Denmark being a great Northern European power, which the Danes were very aware of.
- Despite the fact that Sweden was successful in becoming the dominant Scandinavian as well as Baltic nation in the 17-18th century, the wars we had to fight in order to maintain this ‘empire’ were very costly. Besides costing a lot of men and it almost ruined our economy. In the 19th century a lot of Swedes decided America was a better place to live and emigrated.
Today, Metropolitan Gothenburg is one of the fastest growing areas in terms of economy in the whole of Europe. There’s work and there’s room to build and there’s a lot of young people coming here, but families tend to have 1 and a half child (statistically possible it is in any case) instead of 10 or 12 like they did during the last wave of emigration.
Correction to post above:
I wrote that you posted the article, Pete, I later saw it was blam.
Anyhow,
Best of regards to both of you.
=======================================================
That region is still slowly rising. The last ice sheet was immensely heavy and depressed the crust there and the land has been gradually coming back up since the glacial retreat.
The land is rising/rebounding (still today) from the huge glacier that was parked on it during the Ice Age.
They probably arrived there after the Younger Dryas and may have been driven out on a number of occassions as the climate/temperature cycled up/down.
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I was just thinking the same thing. If the ocean levels were that high during the stone age, I wonder how the natives managed to overcome global warming then???? Just what pollutant did they eliminate from the earth to bring us to our current era which the GB fanatics seem to think is a permanent earthly condition.
Thought about you right away. My great grandfather was a Swedish stone mason and contractor from the area of Gothenburg. He emigrated to Illinois. We used to pass over bridges he had built here in the U.S. and my grandmother would say “This is one of father’s (bridges.)
- Wonderful! There’s evidently a Gothenburg/Göteborg subsection here on Free Republic! Speaking of Illinois and Swedes in the construction business, I guess you’ve heard the expression ‘Swedes built Chicago’, or perhaps this saying isn’t very common anymore in the US? Anyhow, I’ve understood it stems from the fact that a lot of Swedish carpenters, brick layers and workers took part in rebuilding Chicago after the devastating fire in the late 19th century.
Swedes here in Sweden should take pride in having relatives who’ve contributed to making USA what it is today and I would say a lot of us do!
“They should find the remains of lots of fires (if trees had managed to regrow then) and lots of furs.”
- Sounds plausible. OR they should find remnants of my forebearers.
Seriously, When I go out during Swedish winters dressed in a t-shirt or a shirt, I initially experience that the low temperatures are getting the best of me. BUT then the torment all ends and I no longer feel the cold. It’s like my body goes through some phase of complete conversion.
On the other hand, while I’m indoors, it seems I’m more sensitive to comparative cold, like 19 degrees celsius instead of 20-21 degrees, than other people.
‘Viking’ genes or having been told to many ‘Viking’ stories as a child?
I wouldn't’t doubt it. At one time there were 1,000,000 Swedes in Chicago. (1900) Of course there were a large number in Wisconsin, where they cut down all the trees to rebuild Chicago.
There were tradesmen on Father’s Father’s family, and Father’s Mother’s family. (In one case the son of an Army officer had to take up a trade; his officer father gambled away freehold grant family property from the Crown. (Kartered, not far from Alingsos.))
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