ESTONIA - Scandinavia - page 1043

America. You'll learn about those who suffered under WWII Nazi occupa-
tion, and the heroes who organized resistance and sheltered Jewish people.
And you'll experience the richness of Scandinavia today—its wealth, its lib-
eral policies, and its global outlook.
Want to hear more of the Scandinavian story? Read on.
Prehistory and Hunters with Spears (c. 8000 B.C. - A.D. 1)
Scandinavia became habitable when the glaciers receded at the end of the
last ice age. Stone Age hunters moved north, chasing valuable deer, elk, and
fish. Among these were the forebears of the Sami—or Laplanders—of north-
ern Scandinavia, some of whom continue to herd reindeer and live a nomadic
lifestyle today. For more on the Sami, visit Oslo's National Historical Mu-
seum ( here ) or Norwegian Folk Museum ( here ) , or Stockholm's Nordic Mu-
seum ( here ) . The early Scandinavians began farming (c. 4000 B.C. ) and even-
tually developed tools and weapons made of bronze (c. 1800 B.C. ). We know
these people mainly by their graves—either burial mounds (as on the island
of Öland, Sweden, here ) or the heavy stone tombs called dolmens (as on Den-
mark's isle of Ærø, here ) .
Iron-Age Warriors with Horned Helmets ( A.D. 1-800)
Isolated from the Continent and unconquered by the Romans, Scandinavia
kept close to its prehistoric past. The 2,000-year-old Grauballe Man—whose
corpse was preserved in a peat bog (and is now displayed at the Moesgård
Museum just outside Aarhus, here ) —was a contemporary of Julius Caesar.
But in his world, people spoke not Latin but a Germanic language, wore
animal-horned helmets, and used ceremonial curvy-shaped lur horns. They
forged iron implements decorated with the gods of their pagan religion (such
as the Gundestrup Cauldron displayed in Copenhagen's National Museum,
here ) .Theycommemoratedheroicdeedswithlargestonescarvedwiththean-
gular alphabet known as runes (see the rune stones at Copenhagen's National
Museum, here , and at Jelling, Denmark, here ) . One of their most sacred sites
is at Gamla Uppsala near Stockholm ( here ) , where mighty chieftains were