Gettlinge

Gettlinge is a village in the southwest portion of the island of Öland, Sweden. It is known for its impressive Viking stone ship burial ground. Gettlinge is situated on the western fringe of the Stora Alvaret, a World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO. The site is readily visible from the perimeter highway, Route 136. Gettlinge, as most prehistoric burial sites on Öland, is established on the low-lying ridge, described by Hogan as a geological formation of thickened soil in this alvar region of otherwise extremely thin soil mantle. This ridge was one of the few places on the southern part of the island that had sufficient soil depth for creation of burial mounds.

Situated at the fringe of the Stora Alvaret, the Gettlinge site and environs contains a number of rare and endangered species of both plants and animals, but most of these species are seasonally blooming wildflowers that flower in the late spring and summer. Beneath the soil layer where burials are placed is an extensive limestone formation, which is the source of most of the local building materials, which has supported drystone construction since medieval times. The standing stones of the Viking ship itself are granite, which moraine materials were pushed here from the mainland by ice age glaciers.

At Gettlinge as for much of the island of Öland, bedrock layers are primarily Ordovician limestone that dates to at least 600 million years ago. Most of the limited supply of topsoil was created from glacial grinding of the limestone bedrock, which action created the nearly flat alvar formation. It was the end of the last ice age which led to uplift, creating the landform that is now the island of Öland.

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