Valsgärde ~ Development and change of a burial ground over 1300 years

This article investigates the 62 cremation burials at Valsgärde, hitherto never discussed as a contextual whole. A chronology over the entire cemetery is constructed, on the basis of which it is possible to map activities on the site and to investigate the structural development of the cemetery in a long-time perspective. The earliest burials date to the Pre-Roman Iron Age; then, after a lacuna of maybe 400 years, there is a more or less unbroken chain of burials from the Late Roman Iron Age until the earliest, Scandinavian Middle Ages. Variations in burial customs suggest that at times, the cemetery was used for occasional, exclusive burials, whilst at other times it appears to have been used by a community of people of varying status.