IRON AGE BEADS AND KITCHEN WASTE
In 2008, during an excavation of a very rare burial site from the Germanic Iron Age, we came across beautiful beads. The pearls were recorded in a preparation and are ‘in situ’ – in the soil where they originally lay.
The beads were not created in Denmark and therefore show that locals had contact with both the British Isles and the continent.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the burial site is located at Vium? Vium is an old name from the 300-400s and means something along the lines of ‘Place of Sanctuary’.
In Museum Salling’s collection are many witnesses to man’s interaction with the nature that surrounded them: wild boar jaws, aurochs skulls/horns, a wolf skull, reindeer antlers, a stranded Stone Age whale, the arrow of a giant stingray, turtle shell remains – and millions of oyster shells collected by Stone Age hunters.
The kitchen midden is a great snapshot of the climate. In addition to varying amounts of different snails and mussels, the calcium content of the shells has preserved organic material such as fish bones and bird bones.
Krabbesholm Forest near Skive is home to one of the country’s nine protected kitchen midden sites. It illustrates the close connection with the Limfjord that people in this area have always had.
