Prehistory and Origin of Stockholm - Prehistory

Prehistory

Stockholm is standing on a bedrock of gneiss and granite approximately 2 billion years old. Over millions of years, north-west to south-east oriented cracks appeared in the rock, which rivers transformed into the valleys still present in the landscape, for example the lakes Långsjön, Magelungen, and Drevviken. All around Stockholm, such open fields are separated by forest-laden ridges. Late in this geological process, east to west-oriented faults appeared, resulting in for example the tall, dark cliffs along the northern waterfront of Södermalm.

Three million years ago, a series of ice ages started to grind down the north-bound faults, leaving the south-bound formations intact. During the latest ice age (70.000-9.500 BCE), the area surrounding Stockholm was covered by an ice layer up to two kilometres thick. While the ice effectively eliminated every trace of pre-ice age life, it is assumed humans probably did inhabit the area before the ice age, notwithstanding no archaeological traces can confirm it. Nevertheless, bones from a mammoth have been found in the Brunkebergsåsen esker stretching north to south through central Stockholm.

As ice lightened its grip of the area about 11.500 BCE, the area was inundated by melt water before the land started to rise and the first islets rose over the water surface (at the time located about 40 metres over the present sea level). The retiring ice left behind a cover of sand, gravel, and rocks forming moraine ridges still witnessing how the ice gave up some 250 m annually over two centuries. Under the ice sheet, streams formed eskers, most notably the huge Brunkebergsåsen, the steep slopes of which still form barriers in central Stockholm.

After some 1.000 years the first humans settled in the area to start the Stone Age era characterized by a climate similar to that of the present Mediterranean Sea. Due to land elevation, the archaeological traces of these first coastal settlements are today found far from the coast and the modern metropolitan area. The traces consists of various tools, including quartz and flint arrowheads used by these hunter-gatherers to catch mostly seals. During the end of the Stone Age (4.200–1.800 BCE) humans started to use more stationary settlements, solid buildings standing on strong poles drilled into the ground, even if the access to food still made migratory periods necessary. Graves got more elaborate as grinned axes made of carefully selected and often imported rocks accompanied the dead together with ceramics, fancy garments, and other impressive objects.