Early Modern Deviant Burial in Prehistoric Monuments in Sweden

International Journal of Historical Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-024-00748-4 Early Modern Deviant Burial in Prehistoric Monuments in Sweden Martin Rundkvist1 Accepted: 19 June 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract This study deals with Early Modern burials in ancient monuments located nowhere near churches or execution sites. Examples are given from four prehistoric sites in different Swedish provinces, dating from the Early Neolithic through the Roman Period, with a total of 15 buried Early Modern individuals. Written sources along with details of the burial rite suggest that they are plague burials. Such were not welcome in churchyards because of concerns over the poorly understood contagion. Why people all over Sweden occasionally targeted ancient monuments specifically for this purpose is not clear. In one case, they saw the monument as the remains of a church. More generally, they knew that much older burials sanctified and lent some prior sanction to those sites. Keywords Sweden · Early Modern · Burial · Deviant · Aberrant · Pandemics Introduction Deviant, aberrant, or non-normative burial during the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods has emerged in recent years as an active field of research (e.g., Alterauge et al. 2020; Cusack 2021; Kallio-Seppä et al. 2022; Tarlow 2011). It deals with normbreaking burial inside and outside of churchyards, on gallows’ hills, etc. But the literature also contains a sprinkling of deviant cases hinting at a particular custom that is little known in the discipline. This study focuses on Early Modern burial in ancient monuments that are located nowhere near churches or execution sites. Sweden has a continuous record of large and ostentatious monuments from the 3900s cal BCE (long barrows with standing timber facades; Larsson 2002) through Martin Rundkvist 1 Instytut Archeologii, Uniwersytet Łódzki, ul. Prez. Gabriela Narutowicz 65, Łódź PL–90–131, Poland 13 International Journal of Historical Archaeology the AD 900s CE (great round barrows covering cremation layers; Bratt 2008). From the eleventh century onward, this investment in monumental architecture was redirected into the building of increasingly imposing churches, soon monasteries as well, and from the thirteenth century strongholds too. Swedish prehistory is understood to end very late, about 1100 CE, since the only domestically produced written sources prior to that date are brief runic inscriptions. At the same time, burial moved from prehistoric cemeteries to churchyards, initially private ones. From the thirteenth century onward the country’s agricultural provinces were then organized into church parishes serving as burial collectives, among other functions (Brink 2016). Early Modern Sweden after the Reformation in 1527–44 was highly organized, with strong record-keeping and strictly enforced administrative norms. Comprehensive resident registration began regionally in the early seventeenth century and became codified into national law in 1686 (Kyrkio-Lag och Ordning). The Lutheran state church kept a keen eye on burial, amounting almost to a monopoly. The country’s religious minorities were small, few, and for much of the era not tolerated. When someone died in Sweden, with very few exceptions the death was recorded by the parish priest and the body inhumed in the churchyard. The main officially recognized exceptions had to do with (a) suicide, (b) pre-baptismal infant death, (c) execution of criminals, who were buried under the gallows, and (d) death at sea, where semiofficial naval cemeteries on islands were used (Hagberg 1937:499ff; Lundgren 1997; Rundkvist 2009). Delimitation Gallows on top of prehistoric barrows are rare in Sweden and do not fall within this study’s scope. Such were however common in the Netherlands (Meurkens 2010) and in German-speaking countries (Auler 2008a:14–114, 316, 342ff, 379, 389, 2008b:18, 56ff, 118ff, 180ff, 2008c:31ff, 93ff, 122ff, 213f, 222, 262, 305, 317, 322). And in Denmark, the place name Galgehøj, “Gallows Barrow” is not uncommon. One rare Swedish example is the Bronze Age barrow Lurakulle near Jönköping: it had a gallows on top before 1701 and has yielded modern human remains (VestbøeFranzén 2015:198ff). Another is Vadstena’s Late Medieval and Early Modern execution site, which was next to a richly furnished Viking Period burial under a stone pavement (Fendin 2008). There is also a much more prevalent reuse of ancient graves during the Viking Period before 1100, which though interesting does not concern us here (Andersson 1997,2004; Hållans-Stenholm 2012; Reynolds 2009; Rundkvist 2003:73, 2012; Toplak 2023). We will nevertheless encounter this custom in one of the Early Modern cases described below. As further delimitation, this study emphasises monument over prehistoric. It excludes burial on sites that only an archaeologist would have recognized (e.g., Fitzpatrick and Laidlaw 2001; Peyroteo Stjerna et al. 2022). It is in my view important for the credibility of research into the Past in the Past (Bradley 2002) not to overinterpret later features cut into nondescript cultural layers. A lot of what we recognize as archaeological sites today must have gone unremarked on before the advent of our discipline. In the following, we examine burials at four ancient sites that each 13 International Journal of Historical Archaeology would have merited a tourist sign for their visible features. It would in my opinion be unreasonable to argue that these monuments meant nothing to the Early Modern burying collectives. Plague Burials Below, I present evidence that suggests a previously unrecognised custom in Early Modern Sweden of deviant burial in clearly identifiable ancient monuments. The monuments selected for this treatment are close to villages and hamlets. The graves may in fact have been dug by inhabitants of these settlements for deceased members of their own households. They date from all three centuries of the Early Modern Period. All 15 of the buried individuals were adults. None show any evidence of battle death, execution, or dismemberment. Can these people be a fortuitous mix of suicides and murder victims? I think not. As pointed out by Brink and Dehman (2013:189), there is a brief crisis event in our period of interest when the Swedish authorities explicitly ordered country people to avoid the parish churchyards and bury their dead near their homes, like in the first millennium. It has to do with the country’s last major plague outbreak, which was extremely severe. In several Swedish towns, half of the population died between 1710 and 1713. On November 8, 1710, the Royal Council took an unprecedented step and ordered that plague victims be buried without any of the usual deeply significant ceremony, “outside of town and in the country on an out-of-the-way hillock [Sw. i afsides backe] … along with their clothes and bed linen” (Stiernman 1775, 6:33, my translation). The bodies and textiles were k (...truncated)