Contexts - The Rough Guide to Sweden - page 350

History
Sweden has one of Europe's longest documented histories , but for all the
upheavals of the Viking times and the warring of the Middle Ages, the
country has, in modern times, seemed to delight in taking a historical back
seat. For a brief period in 1986, when Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot
dead, Sweden was thrust into the limelight. Since then, the country has
regained some of its equilibrium, though political infighting and domestic
disharmony often threatens the one thing that Swedes have always been
proud of, and that other countries aspire to: the politics of consensus , the
potential passing of which is arguably of far greater importance than even
the assassination of their prime minister.

Early civilizations
It was not until around 6000 BC that the first settlers roamed north and east into
Sweden, living as nomadic reindeer hunters and herders. By 3000 BC people had
settled in the south of the country and were established as farmers; from 2000 BC
there are indications of a development in burial practices, with dolmens and passage
graves found throughout the southern Swedish provinces. Traces also remain of the
Boat Axe People , named after their characteristic tool and weapon, shaped like a boat.
The earliest horse riders in Scandinavia, they quickly held sway over the whole of
southern Sweden.
During the Bronze Age (1500-500 BC) the Boat Axe People traded furs and amber
for southern European copper and tin - large finds of finished ornaments and weapons
show a comparatively rich culture. This was emphasized by elaborate burial rites, the
dead laid in single graves under mounds of earth and stone.
The deterioration of the Scandinavian climate in the last millennium before Christ
coincided with the advance across Europe of the Celts, which halted the flourishing
trade of the Swedish settlers. With the new millennium, Sweden made its first mark
upon the Classical world. In the Historia Naturalis , Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD)
mentioned the “island of Scatinavia” far to the north. Tacitus was more specific: in
98 AD he mentioned a powerful people who were strong in men, weapons and ships,
the Suinoes - a reference to the Svear , who were to form the nucleus of an emergent
Swedish kingdom by the sixth century.
The Svear settled in the rich land around Lake Mälaren and became rulers of most of
the territory comprising modern Sweden, except the south. They gave Sweden its
modern name: Sverige in Swedish or Svear rik , the kingdom of the Svear. More
importantly, their first dynastic leaders had a taste for expansion, trading with Gotland
and holding suzerainty over the Åland Islands.

6000BC 98AD First century AD Ninth century AD

First settlers arrive Tacitus refers to northern

tribes as Suinoes

Svear tribe become rulers
of land now Sweden

Swedish Vikings travel to
Black and Caspian seas