Large numbers of engraved stone disks have been unearthed in Denmark.
Some of the engravings show rows of lines and/or dots and perhaps represent crops in a field. Others have spiderweb-like designs, while others seem to have engravings representing the sun on them.
“A total of 614 crafted plaques and plaque fragments carrying a variety of decorative motifs were found during excavations at Vasagård West between 2013 and 2018. The vast majority derive from the ditches of the causewayed enclosure, though a few were found in postholes belonging to one of the timber circles and some come from a cultural layer deposited in a shallow depression just next to the causewayed enclosure. In the ditches, the engraved stones are delimited to a specific recurring layer. The stratigraphy, comparable between ditches, indicates a sealing of the lower layers of the ditches by a stone pavement dated by pottery inclusions to c. 3000–2900 BC. Most engraved stones were found in the lower section of the darker infilling layer that sits on top of the pavement (layer 2). This infill is dated by ceramic typology to the local Vasagård phase of the late Funnel Beaker culture, c. 2900–2800 BC.” (Iversen et al. 2025)
The original interpretation of this speculated that it had something to do with fertility rites for the crops in their fields (falling back on the old definition of anything we don’t fully understand as ‘ceremonial’). However, the timing of the burial of the stones now has been found to coincide with a period of climatic cooling caused by volcanism. “Recently, researchers fit together clues hinting at a motive for the Vasagård burial. They examined sediments from Germany, tree rings from Germany and the western United States, and frost markers in Greenland ice cores, identifying a period of intense climate cooling around 2900 BC — the time of the sun stones’ burial. Quantities of sulfate in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica dating to about 2910 BC suggested that this cooling followed a volcanic eruption, scientists reported January 16 in the journal Antiquity. ‘It was a major eruption of a great magnitude,’ comparable to the well-documented eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano in 43 BC that cooled the climate by about 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius), said lead study author Rune Iversen, an archaeologist and an associate professor at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Okmok’s eruption, one of the largest of the past 2,500 years, triggered more than two years of unusual cold and erratic weather that decimated crops across the Mediterranean, leading to famine and disease. The aftermath was so devastating that it is thought to have hastened the fall of the Roman Republic and the subsequent rise of the Roman Empire, another team of scientists reported in 2020. Though little is known about the 2900 BC eruption, it is thought to have ushered in similar hardship, suffering and death in Neolithic Denmark, Iversen told CNN.” (Weisberger 2025)
The original interpretation of this speculated that it had something to do with fertility rites for the crops in their fields (falling back on the old definition of anything we don’t fully understand as ‘ceremonial’). However, the timing of the burial of the stones now has been found to coincide with a period of climatic cooling caused by volcanism. “Recently, researchers fit together clues hinting at a motive for the Vasagård burial. They examined sediments from Germany, tree rings from Germany and the western United States, and frost markers in Greenland ice cores, identifying a period of intense climate cooling around 2900 BC — the time of the sun stones’ burial. Quantities of sulfate in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica dating to about 2910 BC suggested that this cooling followed a volcanic eruption, scientists reported January 16 in the journal Antiquity. ‘It was a major eruption of a great magnitude,’ comparable to the well-documented eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano in 43 BC that cooled the climate by about 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius), said lead study author Rune Iversen, an archaeologist and an associate professor at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Okmok’s eruption, one of the largest of the past 2,500 years, triggered more than two years of unusual cold and erratic weather that decimated crops across the Mediterranean, leading to famine and disease. The aftermath was so devastating that it is thought to have hastened the fall of the Roman Republic and the subsequent rise of the Roman Empire, another team of scientists reported in 2020. Though little is known about the 2900 BC eruption, it is thought to have ushered in similar hardship, suffering and death in Neolithic Denmark, Iversen told CNN.” (Weisberger 2025)
A climate event of the magnitude speculated would have caused major crop failures and famine. “A cooling event comparable to the one caused by the 43 BC eruption took place a few years before or after 2900 BC and coincided with the ritual deposition of the engraved stones. It is possible that this 2900 BC cooling event also had wider economic and social consequences for the people living in southern Scandinavia at the time, as it coincides with the beginning of the final Funnel Beaker phase. This phase is characterised by substantial changes in material break with the classic Funnel Beaker tradition, the cessation of megalithic tomb building and the formation of new networks and influences from the marine oriented Scandinavian Pitted Ware culture, which also affected Bornholm.” (Iversen et al. 2025) So, the fact that the climate dangerously cooled and that at the same time hundreds of these stones were buried does not really seem much like a coincidence.
The authors have made a number of conclusions about the subjects of the engraving on the stones. “The Vasagård engraved stones present miniature art with motifs connected to the sun and to the growth of cultivated plants. Deposition occurred on a single or a few successive occasions, potentially in response to one or more climatic cooling events around 2900 BC precipitated by a volcanic eruption. These depositions could have been made during a time of stress with the purpose of bringing back the sun and re-establishing agricultural production. They could also have been made when the climate crisis was over, as an act of celebration for the return of the sun. At Vasagård the deposition of the engraved stones correlates with a change from activities centered on the causewayed enclosure to new rituals taking place in small, circular cult houses inside wooden palisades. The effects of the climate crisis may have resulted in increased competition and conflicts at a time when the classical Funnel Beaker tradition was dissolving and was soon to be followed by new cultural changes resulting from migrations impacting eastern, central and northern Europe and beyond.” (Iversen et al. 2025)
Now I certainly do not want to pick a fight with Iversen et al., but I have to ask how burying something underground makes it a sacrifice to the sun. The sun is up overhead in the sky, not underground. It would be my assumption that ancient Scandinavians associated the sky with their gods, and thus the focus of their religious beliefs would have been upward, but I will just have to accept that I do not share (or understand) their beliefs. I would also bet that a large portion of the population back then were in denial that the climate would or could change, much like the percentage of our fellow citizens who deny climate change in our time. If we do not learn from history we may be forced to repeat it. History may not repeat itself, but it surely rhymes.
NOTE 1: My closing line above is a paraphrasing of a quotation usually credited to Theodore Reik or Mark Twain.
NOTE 2: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Iversen, Rune et al., 2025, Sun stones and the darkened sun: Neolithic miniature art from the island of Bornholm, Denmark, 16 January 2025, Published online by Cambridge University Press, https://www.cambridge.org/cord/journals/antiquity. Accessed online 16 May 2025.
Weisberger, Mindy, 2025, Neolithic people in Denmark sacrificed ‘sun stones’ after climate cataclysm, scientists say, 23 January 2025, CNN online, https://edition.cnn.com. Accessed online 16 May 2025.
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