Bronze Age Scandinavian Clothing

A few weeks ago, I found a link to a free download of an interesting book about clothing in Scandinavia during the Bronze Age.  The citation is:

Bergerbrant, Sophie (Stockholm University, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies). Bronze Age Identities: Costume, Conflict and Contact in Northern Europe 1600-1300 B.C. (Bricolour Press 2007).

Although the author is more interested in exploring what Bronze Age clothing signaled about the wearer's gender and societal role than about what the clothing looked like or how it was made, there is a lot of information about Bronze Age clothing finds  in the book.  The finds from Skyrdstrup, Borum Eshøj, and Egtved are among those described, illustrated, and discussed in some detail. I recommend the book to anyone curious about those finds and looking for more information about them.

I am still pondering what I'm learning from Ms. Bergerbrant's book, which challenges a number of assumptions I hadn't realized I was making.  One of those assumptions is that the long tube-shaped garment found at Huldremose was worn as a peplos.  Ms. Bergerbrant questions that belief, which  apparently is based upon a hypothesis by Inga Hagg.   Doubt about whether the peplos was worn in the Bronze Age in Scandinavia is interesting to me because Professor Hagg, among others, has hypothesized that the apron dress is a descendant of the peplos.  If the peplos was not worn in pre-Iron Age Scandinavia, or if it came to Scandinavia later than the Bronze Age, that may bear on the question of whether there is a connection between the peplos and the Viking era apron dress--and, if so, what that connection really was.