2,500-Year-Old Bronze Age Relics Accidentally Discovered in Swedish Forest

Authorities recently said a Swedish orienteering enthusiast who was working on a map earlier last month stumbled across a mass of around 50 2,500-year-old Bronze Age relics.

ScienceAlert reported that, in a statement, the County Administrative Board said that primarily comprising ancient jewelry, the discovery outside the small town of Alingsas, located in western Sweden, signifies one of the most remarkable and largest cache discoveries from Bronze Age ever in the Nordic country.

Among the remnants, believed to be from the era between 750 and 500 BCE, are some "very well-preserved necklaces, chains and needles" made out from bronze.

The objects discovered were lying out in the open in front of some rocks out in the forest. Presumably, the government agency explained, animals have dug them out of the crevice between boulders, where one can assume that they had been there before.

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Accidental Discovery

Cartographer Tomas Karlsson, who made the discovery while he was out updating a map, initially thought what he found was just junk.

Describing what he discovered, Karlsson said in a Dagens Nyheter report the object "looked like metal garbage." He initially thought it was a lamp lying there.

He added explaining to the paper, he then hunched over and found a spiral and a necklace. However, it all looked quite new. He first thought they were fake, continued the map maker.

Karlsson then reported his discovery to local authorities who then, deployed a team of archeologists to study the site.

According to professor of archaeology Johan Ling, from the University of Gothenburg, most of the discoveries are made up of bronze products that can be linked to a woman of high status during the Bronze Age.

Women of high status during this period, Ling explained, have been used to adorn various body parts like necklaces, bracelets and ankle bracelets among others, although there were large needles and eyelets as well, to adorn and hold up various pieces of clothing, perhaps, made of wool.

Life in the Bronze Age

According to a History report, the Bronze Age marked the very first time humans began working with metal. Bronze weapons and tools soon replaced the earlier versions of stones.

In addition, ancient Sumerians in the Middle East may have been the first humans to enter the Bronze Age. People made technological advances during this era, which include the first writing methods, as well as the wheel's invention.

Essentially, the ancient Sumer may have been the original civilization to begin adding tin to copper to produce bronze. Bronze was more solid and harder, not to mention more durable compared to copper, making it a better metal to make weapons and tools.

In the Middle East, as well as portions of Asia, the Bronze Age lasted from approximately 3300 to 1200 BC, rapidly ending with the near-simultaneous downfall of numerous prominent Bronze Age civilizations.

Furthermore, humans may have begun to smelt copper as early as 6,000 BC in the so-called Fertile Crescent, which, according to the National Geographic, is a region frequently identified as the 'cradle of civilization' and a historical site of the Middle East where agriculture and the first cities of the world emerged.

A related report is shown on Robert Chernish's YouTube video below: