The Late Iron Age Mound Raknehaugen in Norway: A Ritual Response to the Sixth-Century Crisis

Abstract

This article challenges long-held assumptions that Raknehaugen, the largest prehistoric mound in Scandinavia, served as a high-status burial monument. While traditionally seen as reflecting elite power in the Late Iron Age, this interpretation is poorly supported by archaeological evidence, which has consistently failed to reveal any evidence of a burial. Instead, the author argues that the mound’s construction should be understood as a communal, ritual response to a catastrophic landslide that took place in the wake of the ad 536 ‘Dust Veil’ climatic crisis. Drawing on a relational landscape approach, recent LiDAR analysis, and dendrochronological data, the study situates Raknehaugen within a dynamic landscape and suggests that it functioned as a structure intended to restore the cosmological and social order. Reframing the mound as an active agent in a sacred landscape opens new avenues for interpreting Iron Age monumentality beyond elite-centric narratives, emphasizing landscape, materiality, and collective ritual practices.