Fire, Water, Heaven and Earth

"Archaeological excavations of prehistoric Scandinavian graves and ritual sites often reveal seemingly enigmatic and contradictory features. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that such sites can be given a much broader interpretation than as solely burial grounds, in the sense of places for the deposition of the remains of the dead. Interpretation from a comparative Indo-European perspective allows a partly new approach to material which at first sight seems fragmentary and anonymous." "The author discusses mortuary practices and votive customs in ancient Scandinavian tradition in a long-term perspective, with a comparative Indo-European approach. This is illustrated by a variety of archaeological sites, particularly some examples that have been excavated by Swedish contract archaeology in recent years, yielding a rich new body of material for interpretations of this problem field."--Jacket