234. The Full Neolithic and Its Subdivisions in Scandinavia
Two or three thousand years passed, and by about 5500 B.C. the Scandinavian climate had become slightly cooler once more, the oaks gave way to birches and pines, the Baltic lost some of its salt content, and the oyster grew scarcer. The Kitchenmidden or Litorina period of the Early Neolithic was over; the Full Neolithic had arrived. Axes were polished, cattle kept, grain grown. Four Stages of development are discernible.
5500-3500 B.C. Burials in soil. Sharp-butted axes.
3500-2500 B.C. Burials in dolmens, chambers of three to five flat upright stones, roofed with one slab. Narrow-butted axes.
2500-2100 B.C. Burials in Allées couvertes or Ganggraeber, chambers of dolmen type but larger and with a roofed corridor approach. Thick-butted axes. Some copper. Beautifully neat and even chipping of flint daggers, lance heads, arrowpoints, some suggesting by their forms that they may be flint imitations of bronzes already in use on the Mediterranean. The same is true of perforated stone axes, ground into ornamental curves, such as are natural in cast metal.
2100-1900 B.C. Burials in stone cysts, progressively decreasing in size. Thick-butted axes. Chipped daggers and curving axes reminiscent of bronze forms continue. The first bronze appears, its percentage of tin still low.