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Stone ships: continuity and change in Scandinavian prehistory

Abstract The focus of this article is the tradition of building stone-ship burials in Scandinavia during prehistory. This tradition is found to different degrees at different times in various regions in Scandinavia during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (1700 bc–ad 1000). In this article I use the example of Scandinavian ship symbolism during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age to argue that the leapwise and hesitant spread of the tradition of burying people in stone ships in Scandinavian prehistory occurred because real ships made for warfare and long-distance voyages call for an unequal social organization with a captain and ordinary men. The relation between symbolic ships and real ships was used in various social strategies that changed in space and in time. In some areas this relation was underlined and the symbolic stone ships were reserved for few people, while in other areas this relation was not admitted and a broader spectrum of the population was buried in stone ships; finally there was the tradition of not using manifest stone ships in connection with death rituals.