Discover a different side of the Bronze Age in addition to the famous petroglyphs. While the rock carvings give us glimpses of a bygone era, the Bronze Age farm at Vitlycke Museum illustrates more about the daily life of people at that time: how they lived, their houses, fields, and their domestic animals.
Since houses from the Bronze Age were constructed using organic materials and they were built so long ago, only traces of them remain. It is thanks to the persistent work of archaeologists that we know what they probably looked like. This type of house is called a longhouse and they were common for several thousand years. With only minor modifications they were built from the end of the Stone Age until the end of the Iron Age. The longhouses were from 10-40 metres in length and built of whatever material was to hand. Ours are built of oak, reeds, turf, osiers and clay. A building of this size may have had a household of 10-12 people living. All the generations lived under the same roof.
The climate changed during the Late Bronze Age, and with it so did people’s way of living. It got colder and the animals were allowed into the people’s dwellings, at least the more valuable livestock. The longhouses were built in the same manner as in the Early Bronze Age but now with one half as human living-quarters and the other half for livestock. The reason for not building separate stables may have been that it was warmer for humans and animals to share the same space and pershaps because it was easier to protect the livestock against rustlers and wild animals.
Pollen analysis and traces of up to 100 different types of plants obtained from archaeological excavations have given us a knowledge of which plants existed and were used during the Bronze Age. Some plants were cultivated, while others were collected from the surrounding countryside for various purposes: food, medicine, textiles, dyeing.
Bronze Age crops included emmer, einkorn, millet, grey peas, and broad beans.
However, there were no domesticated birds. There were fewer smaller in the Bronze Age than today, and they were less productive, but on the other hand they were more robust.
The farm includes reconstructions of two longhouses from the Early and Late Bronze Age. There is also a workshop where traditional crafts are demonstrated during the summer season.
The plants on the farm have been selected to reflect the cultivated landscape of the Bronze Age and to provide habitats for solitary bees, pollinating insects and birds. The plantings illustrate what was grown and what people could eat during the period.
In the area behind the farm there is a forest which we are gradually transforming into a woodland area inspired by the Bronze Age. The forest of the Bronze Age was a mixed deciduous forest of linden, oak, ash, birch and hazel. More intensive farming and grazing thinned out the previously dense primeval forest, which sometime gave way to open pasture.
In the depths of the forest a lake, or sacrificial bog, provides a unique insight into the sacred sites of the Bronze Age. Near the lake there is a tree decorated with gifts in the form of bronze necklaces and from the jetty you can see the island from which images of the gods rise up.
The farm is the base for the museum’s camp activities and an important part of our longer guided tours.
During the summer, activities such as Bronze Age life and craft demonstrations take place here.
For more information about dates and times of activities at the Bronze Age farm, go to:
