. Heimdall's Stones at Vitemölla is an archaeological monument of stones arranged in circles and where sightlines can be identified of the sunrise and sunset at winter and summer solstices and spring and autumn equinoxes. Therefore, this stone monument is likely to have served as an archaeoastronomic observatory. It is founded in a fossil land surface now covered by half a metre of eolian sand. In order to date this sand drift, sediment coring was performed in the nearby Sandefloen bog. Seven levels were subjected to AMS C14 dating. The first sand drift, correlated with the sand drift covering Heimdall's Stones, was dated at 500–600 cal. bc. Consequently, the observatory has to date back to the Bronze Age, fitting well with its Sun cult and with the rock carvings recorded on the individual stones. At the seashore 500 m east of the observatory and the bog, we were able to reconstruct the sea‐level changes. In conclusion, we combine the recorded sea‐level changes with the C14‐dated bog stratigraphy and the observed stratigraphy at Heimdall's Stones (covering an area of 500×500 m) into one unified picture. The chronostratigraphic position of Heimdall's Stones agrees well with the dating of the Kivik grave. The Vitemölla area is likely to have been an important cultural centre in the Bronze Age.

The Bronze Age of Scandinavia (1750-500 BC) is characterized by the sudden appearance of bronze objects in Scandinavia, the sudden mass appearance of amber in Mycenaean graves, and the beginning of bedrock carvings of huge ships. We take this to indicate that people from the east Mediterranean arrived to Sweden on big ships over the Atlantic, carrying bronze objects from the south, which they traded for amber occurring in SE Sweden in the Ravlunda-Vitemölla–Kivik area. Those visitors left strong cultural imprints as recorded by pictures and objects found in SE Sweden. This seems to indicate that the visits had grown to the establishment of a trading centre. The Bronze Age of Österlen (the SE part of Sweden) is also characterized by a strong Sun cult recorded by stone monuments built to record the annual motions of the Sun, and rock carvings that exhibit strict alignments to the annual motions of the Sun. Ales Stones, dated at about 800 BC, is a remarkable monument in the form of a 67 m long stone-ship. It records the four main solar turning points of the year, the 12 months of the year, each month covering 30 days, except for month 7 which had 35 days (making a full year of 365 days), and the time of the day at 16 points representing 1.5 hour. Ales Stones are built after the same basic geometry as Stonehenge in England.

We report a novel finding that Stonehenge in England and Ales Stones in Sweden were built with the same basic geometry and using the megalithic yard as standard of measure. This opens quite new perspectives into cultural influence, travel and trading in the Bronze Age.

Bronze was imported to Scandinavia from the East Mediterranean. This trading started about 1750 BC. At just the same time amber from the Baltic started to appear in Mycenaean and Minoan graves. This gives evidence of active trading between the Mediterranean and Scandinavia. The sudden appearance of picture of large ships cut into bedrock surfaces and blocks at about the same time suggests that this trading took place via visitors arriving by ships. The size of the ships seems to preclude a stepwise transfer via the river systems between the Black Sea and the Baltic, but rather a travel over the Atlantic Sea. This calls for sea-worthy ships and knowledge in geography. In the Bronze Age, only the Mycenaean, Minoan and Phoenician cultures had such ships and such skill. Reaching this far north by 1750 BC in ships following the Atlantic coast of Europe implies that those people may as well have reached much further to the south and the west than previously assumed.

The Scandinavian Bronze Age started quite rapidly at around 1750 BC, and is marked by three simultaneous events: 1) importation of bronze from the east Mediterranean region, 2) export of amber from southeast Sweden to the east Mediterranean region, and 3) the carving of pictures of big ships on bedrock and boulders in southern Scandinavia. We take this as evidence of travel and trading by people coming from the east Mediterranean region on big ships via Gibraltar and the North Sea to Scandinavia. At the same time, the Sun cult flourished in southern Sweden and Denmark, as evidenced by monuments perfectly oriented with respect to the Sun's daily and annual motions over the sky (e.g. Ales Stones), rock carvings of solar symbols and in solar alignment, and a number of ritual objects related to the Sun Cult (e.g. The Golden Sky Dome). In this paper, we summarize and update available data, especially the data from Southern Sweden.