ABSTRACT
From the Late Bronze Age onwards (ca. 1100 BC), cremation is the dominant funerary practice in Scandinavia, in general, and Sweden, in particular. The intensive use of fire and the mastering of heat can be seen in metallurgy and the smith's furnace, but cremation is first and foremost closely associated with cultivation and the fertility of the fields. Apart from fire regimes in agriculture clearing land for cultivation, a common feature throughout the millennia is finds of cremated human remains on the fields. Human bones have been scattered as a part of agricultural rituals, and in many grave contexts grinding stones are found together with grains and crushed bones. In recent years, major archaeological contract excavations have documented contexts were grains and human bones have been made into bread and meals, which fits very well in the overall Indo-European tradition documented in later European and Scandinavian folklore.
