End of the world representation (Elements of this image furnished by NASA.)
Ancient files: Mysterious discs appear on tiny Danish island. Stone Age Danes were caught in an ‘end of the world’ volcanic cataclysm.
Credit: Shutterstock, muratart
Mysterious discs appeared on tiny Danish island.
A Stone Age sensation is lighting up the archaeological world after boffins uncovered hundreds of peculiar ‘sun stones‘ on a tiny Danish island. Experts now say these mysterious discs may have been buried in a dramatic bid to bring back the sun following a massive volcanic eruption nearly 5,000 years ago! What? Read on to find out.
The first of these disc-shaped minerals turned up at Rispebjerg on the island of Bornholm in 1995. Branded ‘sun stones’ thanks to their sunlike rays etched into the surface, they also sport motifs resembling plants and fields.
Later digs (between 2013 and 2018) at nearby Vasagård revealed hundreds more stashed in ditches. The big question? Why did ancient Danes feel the need to go to such effort burying these arty discs? What was happening around them at the time?
Havoc in the skies
Scientists soon turned Sherlock Holmes on the case. Clues in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica showed a volcanic mega-blast around 2900 BC. Sulphate traces – stunted growth in ancient trees from Germany and the US – and even gloomy lake sediments in Germany’s Eifel region all point to a terrifying eruption that dimmed the sun and plunged Northern Europe into a cold snap. The skies went black from one day to the next.
This wasn’t some measly puff of smoke: ‘It was a major eruption of a great magnitude,‘ according to lead study author Rune Iversen, from the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Think the legendary AD 43 Okmok volcano in Alaska, which lowered global temperatures by about 7°C. Bye bye easy harvest, hello end of the world Stone Age meltdown.
When the sun goes AWOL
In Neolithic Denmark, farming was life. So when crops failed and the golden orb in the sky seemed on the blink, panic surely set in. Archaeologists suspect the locals ‘planted‘ these sunstones in ditches – just like seeds – to coax the sun back or celebrate its eventual reappearance.
Henges and the dawn of sun worship?
Community meeting spots such as Vasagård and Rispebjerg were common across Europe in Neolithic times. But the sudden flurry of disc-burying has experts guessing whether this event might have sparked a broader sun-worship craze. Could grand stone circles – like Stonehenge – be part of the same wave of solar devotion?
Mega-Volcano unleashed
So which fiery mountain unleashed this ancient chaos? That puzzle is yet to be solved, but volcanic detectives aim to crack it by analysing chemical signatures in prehistoric ash.
One thing is clear: for Denmark’s Stone Age people, this eruption must have been a real showstopper. They turned to faith, fashioning solar symbols in stone and planting them like seeds of hope – hoping to see that precious sunshine again.
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