The origin of history starts in the human relations, it starts with two self consiousnesses that each desires to be recognised as self conscious by the other.
Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit
The guide: Paula Urbanos target is to find her origin in Sweden in the Swedish. Now I will take you on a guided tour here in the exhibition Prehistories and the intention is to write Paula into the history of Sweden. We start 10 000 – 12 000 years ago, at the end of the ice age. You can see there is snow and ice blocks here. The first people that we have found traces from after the Prehistory are actually people that have moved from one place to another. Maybe they are curious or maybe they are seeking better hunting grounds. However, they have travelled in order to come here. This I am holding is a proof of the long travels. This is a flint core. You can see that it was chipped off, perhaps to make arrowheads, spear parts, knife parts. These type of flint stones as they are called can be found in the most nordic parts of Lapland. Here, many people have lived during this time and they have used this types of objects. But as you may know, there is no flint stone naturally in Lapland. These stones come from the regions of Skåne, or perhaps even farther away. One first evidence of travels and maybe also meetings between people.
We will travel back approximately 2 000-3 000 years ago in Västergötland, to around 6000 years ago.
Now it is 6 000 years ago, and we have come to an area called Falbygden. If you think of the map of Sweden, this is the place between Vänern and Vättern approximately. In Falbygden today, there are a many agricultural landscapes, but also some notable ancient remains, including megalithic tombs. You have to think that you are actually standing in one. Falbygden has aproximately 200 megalithic graves of this sort. They used to be called passage graves, because they have a passage as you see here and then they have a burial chamber. One expression that can be used to be associated with cultivation time. We are now in the time that many calls the Neolithic period. Many begin to cultivate the and became permanent residents. This has been connected with permanent residence, the residents wanted to manifest the place in different ways. There are passage graves of different kinds in many places: at the Swedish west coast, in Bohuslän and Skåne; in Germany, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal and along the whole Atlantic coast. Many of these graves are very alike, so similar that they say it is a sign of contact with the continent. So here, you can see that it is not only to cultivate the land, but many different cultural expressions interacted with each other during this period around 6 000 years ago. Here we can say that you can connect the areas around Sweden and the areas around the Mediterranean. We will now time travel again, to the Bronze Age, approximately 3 000 years ago.
Now it is 3 000 years ago, what we call the Bronze Age, and one very typical expression are these petroglyphs that we see on the ground. We see them in many places in Sweden, especially around the lake Mälaren. It could be plain rock slabs often near the water, think of the waves that hits here in the background. Rock slabs are different kind of stories. There are pictures that are recurrent in many places, for example, these kind of boats that look very different here from other places in for example Spain and other parts around the Mediterranean. What we also have found from the Bronze Age are bronze objects and here in the displays we see examples of many different kind of jewellery that are found in Skåne, and in other parts of the country. An expression of fashion from 3 000 year ago are these spiral forms that are recurrent in the jewellery. We have buckles and many characteristic features from that time. This is Scandinavian fashion from 3 000 year ago, but the material doesn’t come from Sweden. The raw material, the copper, comes from regions outside of Scandinavia.
A fresh study that is so fresh that Paula took it here to the Museum. Lead isotope analyses of bronze and copper show the raw material from these bronze objects. This tip of the spear – the armring, a part of a dagger, even this shield that we have a copy from in this display – comes from a mine in Andalucía. Here we have a direct connection to a more narrow area in Spain. Andalucía. The fact that these bronze objects landed here is very interesting, thinks Paula, who is devoted to genealogy. What you see here in the display, the noble coat of arms, is from Paula’s grandmothers grandfather from the Andalucían family Espinosa. From Andalusia and other parts of Spain, many colonizers from the noblemen's lower part, hidalgos, went to Chile, among other countries. The grandfather of Paula’s grandmother is one of these persons. Through the genealogy, Paula has been able to trace her family to Andalucía; and here, around 2 500 years ago, we see traces from Andalucía in Scandinavia.
What we can say is that the traces so far stops here. We have found material from Andalucía here, but we could also think that it’s possible to find Scandinavian objects in Andalucía.
