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Swedish Iron Age Tour
Visit the remains of the Swedish Iron Age and the countryside around Angarnsjöängen nature reserve. Explore a Viking assembly place, an ancient grave field, an Iron Age hillfort, and three so-called “king’s burial mounds” over 30 metres in diameter and 4 metres high.
The tour starts at Stockholm with hotel pick-up, then travels north into the suburbs and out on the countryside by a beaten, unpaved road that holds runestones and farm names going back to AD 300-400.
The Viking assembly place we visit first is one of the best preserved in Sweden, with two runestones. Hear about the Vikings, their assembly tradition, and some of their laws that we know of.
Then we travel to a big burial field, a graveyard that was used during most of the Iron Age. It still holds a lot of visible graves. Next we stop at Landsberg’s farm, viewing its mighty runestone found close by and venture up the hill into the hillfort where a mighty noble lived in AD 200.
At Vada, three big mounds rise over the landscape: the Vada burial mounds. They are the only remnants of an ancient Iron Age power center by the Långhundra waterway, one of the most important trading routes in Sweden during the Iron Age.
At Vada, the expert guide talks about:
- The settlement of Vada
- Feasts and gift-giving
- Agricultural practice and clothing
- Grave fields and burial rituals
- Weapons, crafts, and trading
- The pagan religion
- Differences and similarities between Sweden’s Vendel age and Viking age