Neolithic Farmers May Have Buried These Mysterious Stones to Bring Back the Sun After a Volcanic Eruption

Over the years, a variety of mysterious engraved stone plaques have been unearthed in Denmark. The decorative artifacts date to around 2900 B.C.E., during the Neolithic period.

Now, researchers have proposed a theory about the plaques’ origins: They suspect Neolithic farmers may have carved and ceremonially buried them after a volcanic eruption blotted out light from the sun and made it difficult to grow crops, according to a study published this month in the journal Antiquity.

The “sun stones” were discovered at Vasagård West, an archaeological site on the Danish island of Bornholm, which is located in the Baltic Sea between Poland and Sweden.

In recent years, researchers found 614 whole or fragmented pieces of plaques from ditches that were later filled in and covered with a layer of pottery, animal bones and artifacts. They suspect they were left by members of the Funnel Beaker culture, a group of farmers known to have inhabited the island.

Initially, researchers thought Neolithic farmers might have buried the stones as “fertility offerings” to promote the growth of crops and a bountiful harvest. But then they realized the plaques had been deposited “on only a few successive occasions or even during a single event.”

They wondered if some catastrophe had triggered the burials.

“We were looking for a natural disaster or climatic event that could have affected crop yields or the visibility of the sun,” says study co-author Rune Iversen, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen, to Newsweek’s Aristos Georgiou.

Researchers turned to ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica to confirm their suspicion: There, trapped in the layers of ice and air bubbles, they found evidence of a volcanic eruption around 2900 B.C.E.—which lines up with the “sun stones.”

The ice core samples suggest the eruption occurred near the equator, but its plumes of toxic gas and ash likely affected a large area. The ensuing haze may have been so thick it blocked out the sun and caused temperatures to plummet.

This theory is backed up by other sources, including tree rings from Germany and the western United States, per the researchers.

This sudden shift would have proved catastrophic for Neolithic farmers on Bornholm. They may have carved and buried the plaques in hopes of bringing back the sun—or, possibly, as a way of celebrating after its return.

“If you don’t have the harvest and you don’t get the crops in, you won’t have anything to sow next year,” Iversen tells New Scientist’s Chris Simms. “They must have felt pretty punished at that time because it’s just an endless catastrophe coming at them.”

Archaeologists wonder whether the volcanic eruption may have contributed to the “Neolithic decline,” a period when northern Europe’s human population decreased. Other possible drivers of this decline include plague, war and famine.

The Neolithic decline was followed by “profound cultural and populational change as new societies appeared with the influx of people from the steppe north of the Black Sea into Europe,” Iversen tells the Art Newspaper’s Garry Shaw.

To confirm this theory, future studies might explore where the volcanic eruption took place, as well as the geographic spread of its debris.

“Could it, for example, have influenced (or even caused) the migration of steppe herders into Europe during the early third millennium [B.C.E.]?” Iversen adds. “If it impacted the life on the steppe, it could be a potential driver for these migrations, which we know from ancient genomics totally changed the genetic landscape of Europe.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.