Single burial mounds from the Neolithic period

The first peasants dolmens and passage graves were intended to contain many deceased and were generally a long way from the river Kongeå.

 

Later single mounds, however, were located closer to the watercourse, where the dead Stone Age peasants were now buried individually. This explains the term 'single grave culture', which lasted from 2800 to 2400 BC. The burial mounds of this period were round with an original height that rarely exceeded 2 metres.

 

Because of the modest dimensions, all single burial mounds that were located along the river Kongeå, have been ploughed over today. Some can just be discerned as weak ridges and light patches in the fields, while others have completely disappeared from the surface. Preserved single burial mounds are found almost exclusively on protected moorland in West Jutland

 

Men from that time with individual graves were buried with battle axes. This was an elegant weapon of rock with a drilled handel. Work axes, flint cleavers and clay vessels could also be part of their buried goods.

 

Women often  took amber jewellery of to the grave with them. The most digified women wore chains with hundreds of amber beads. In the oldest individual graves, the corpse was placed in the sleeping position, where men were laid on the right side and the women on the left. Later, outstretched positions became more common.

 

The Jutland single burial mound was constructed in three phases. The oldest graves were dug down into the ground and a meter-high land dome was constructed above them.

 

The next generations of dead  were buried in the low burial mounds, so the bottom of the grave was at surface level. An earth mound was moulded above this, which the last single burial people were buried in. They lay in the actual mound filling and another low burial mound was placed above them. The burial mounds therefore grew in size, but they rarely reached more than two metres in height and 8 metres in circumference.

 

Many single burial mounds have been ploughed over at Kongeå Valley, especially on the north side of the river. When driving along Kongeåvejen between Skibelund and Sønderskov, your eye is drawn to some light, rounded and slightly raised spots on the freshly ploughed fields on the north side of the road. These are the sad remains of the single burial mounds in the area

 

But where did the deceased individuals from the single burial mounds live? Generally only a few  houses have been found from that period, but 1 km north of here, a small house-remnant with a dug-out floor has been found. It represents a small farm from the end of the single grave culture's time, which was built on the current Kongehøj south of Askov.

 

 

P.V. Glob 1945. Studier over den jyske Enkeltgravskultur. Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1944, p. 1-283.