Objects and Attitudes: The Lusatian Impact on the Material and Mental Culture in South-Eastern Sweden in the Late Bronze Age

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the cultural influences from the European. continent on the material culture of Scandinavian local communities during the late Bronze Age. A connection between the cremation ritual and pottery as ritual equipment is claimed. The paper suggests a close link between religious ritual and the elaborate pottery types that characterise the late Bronze Age; a connection between material culture and mental ideas. The emphasis on pottery during the Bronze Age is thus a product of the change in meaning for pottery. The new pottery styles have an-embodied symbolic meaning connected to the new religion with its different ideas and rites. There is also a change from a domestic sphere to a ritual one.