Aldersro

Facts

Peasant Stone Age communal grave

By Lars Bjarke Christensen (11 stories)

The country road between Værslev and Kærby near Kalundborg runs right through a Peasant Stone Age burial mound. On one side of the road, there are three passage graves, two of which are adjacent. The passage graves were burial sites for some of the first Danish peasants, and the complicated construction of the graves shows the Stone Age people had extensive technological knowledge. Few places in Denmark have three passage graves located in the same burial mound. The over 5,000-year-old passage graves are separated from the road by another passage grave on the other. No one knows whether it was originally one large burial mound or two different ones.

Public place

Selected entry

Bones, amber beads and clay pots

Story written by Lars Bjarke Christensen

Time / Periode -3400 -3000

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Have the Aldersro passage graves been excavated? The National Museum conducted some light restoration work in 1937 and 1941, but a formal excavation had to wait until 1993. The last dig turned up countless human bones, amber beads and broken clay pots from the Peasant Stone Age. Were the passage graves used for a single burial? No, they were communal graves that were used for several centuries. The Aldersro excavation showed that over the years there had been brief intervals when no one was buried at the burial mounds. The entrance to one of the burial chambers contained a whole skeleton. Perhaps these were the remains of the last person to be buried in the passage grave.