A more nuanced view of Scandinavia during the Bronze Age

The study problematizes the rough distinction drawn between hunters and farmers that is often used and put forward by archaeologists and in accounts of human history.

One of the great strides made in the history of humankind was the agricultural revolution, which reached northern Europe some 5,000 years ago. The oversimplification often conveyed is that before the arrival of agriculture, we lived as hunters, and then became farmers. This view ignores the importance of hunting and fishing. 

The project focuses on a period of prehistory that is strongly associated with agriculture – the Bronze Age (1700–500 B.C.). Although the advent of agriculture predates this period, it is during this time that its impact is truly felt, and a burgeoning wealthy elite forms in society. The Bronze Age represents a common cultural sphere in northern Europe, centered on Denmark and the far south of Sweden. But what happened to the hunters, or rather hunting, and the importance of wild animals?

If people in the Bronze Age sphere were farmers, does this mean that hunters continued to exist in northerly marginal areas, such as forested areas inland, where the Stone Age lived on?

It is clear from the available archaeological material that there, too, people changed the way they lived at the same time, and there are indications that they adopted some agricultural practices. But there is also archaeological evidence suggesting that hunting and fishing were of importance in farming communities.

The project is intended to provide a more nuanced account and a better understanding of several aspects of the complex and mythical Bronze Age.