Odödliga rum : En jämförelse av det forntida gravkammarskickets utveckling i Västsverige

Sammanfattning: The earliest graves that are found in Sweden is the megaliths, the huge stone monuments created with boulders and open entrances. The megaliths origin is from the Middle Neolithic’s, but they have been reused for several millenniums. The very act of constructing these monumental stone chambers for the dead shows that these monuments were built to last through time. This master’s thesis deals with four different kind of grave types that spans through four different time periods in Southwestern Sweden. After the Middle Neolithic, monumental graves the hällkistan (stone cists), became the dominant grave type during the Late Neolithic. The cist varies in construction, some are meant to be entered but most are closed. During the Bronze Age a new kind of cists continues to be used and new are constructed although the culture tends to create big heaps, cairns, around the cist. During the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age the construction of the graves changes and the cists are instead present on grave fields. The paper compares the similarities between the graves, megalithic tombs, stone cists, cairns and grave fields, in their monumentality, construction, accessibility, content, and focuses heavily on the transmission between the grave types through the theoretical concept of Longue durée. I have also chosen to focus on the tradition of reuse, and Pierre Nora´s theoretical concepts about memory sites and memory environments. The slow slight changes to the grave traditions, constructions and rooms shows changes in ideology of the contemporary culture. My main focus is to identify and discuss the transformation of the grave room, from the Middle Neolithic monumental stone construction to the late Iron Age grave fields. Through my understanding of this process, I argue that the mentioned grave types are the same type of monument that slowly changes through a time span of roughly 4000 years. The changes are visible through very slight and slow processes.