A
Staffanstorp by Sara & Lucia
The municipality of Staffanstorp was established when twelve parishes, Bjällerup, Brågarp, Esarp, Flackarp, Görslöv, Knästorp, Kyrkheddinge, Mölleberga, Nevishög, Särslöv, Tottarp and Uppåkra,  with a total of 5 800 inhabitants were merged.

The names of the villages can be of help when finding out how old they are. The oldest ones have names that ends with –by, -inge, -hög, -löv, -lösa.

Staffanstorps municipality has eleven local schools, with three of them are organized within the school society, one childcare centre and seven alternative pre-schools. There are eight elementary schools with the classes from 0-9. Every pre-school and elementary school is led by a principal who is in charge of the school.

Staffanstorps railwaystation was opened in 1875. But the rail between Malmö-Lund had been there since 1856, and the rail between Lund-Trelleborg was finished in 1875. In the same year Staffanstorps first post office was opened and it was built at the same station. Soon Staffanstorp became an important railway stations with post office. In March 1907 between Staffanstorp-Djurslöv, Swedens first and only train robbery took place. Two members of the radical young social movement decided that they should rob a train to get some money. They fired three shots and hit the postman between the eyes, but he survived. The two robbers left the train quickly. The booty was 5 360 Swedish kronor. When they were caught, only 800 kronor were left. At the trial they got punished to lifetime work, but they were released after 18 years.

The closeness of the sugar mill in Staffanstorp to the railway was probably not a coincident. In October 1885 Staffanstorps sugar mill was prepared to get their first sugar beets. The sugar beet transport was very meaningful for the railway lines and for Staffanstorp. Instead if moving from the place, craftsmen moved in from Malmö-Lund. The sugar mill meant a big economical advance for the farmers who works on the field. But this development stopped in 1956.

The Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age
Staffanstorp is a young municipality based on ancient cultural ground and traditions. Here are many traces of humans and houses from the Stone Age. In Staffanstorps municipality they have found about 70 leavings from the younger Stone Age. The leavings are almost always next to water. From 2800 BC they found many hand made items. They have found graves from the Stone Age and sacrifices from ancient times. The most famous discovery is the Iron Age settlement in Uppåkra. The archaeologists have only investigated a little part of the place. Uppåkra was a big centre and it was probably the seat of a mighty chieftain.

Gullåkra bog
By the bog Gullåkra, there have been found a magnificent bronze horn in the 1840s that is likely a sacrifice gift. It was found together with a leaving of a boat and a giant animal skeleton, possibly a horse. The horn is 1,28 m long, and it is from 1300-1100 BC.

B

Houses by Sandra, Carro & Cissi
They lived in long houses. The houses were often built by timber. The roof were covered with birch bark and peat grass. They were oblong with earth floor and a fireplace in the middle. I the roof there was a hole, but anyway there was smoke in the house. Along the wall there were long benches were the people sat and slept on. There were also coffins were they kept their stuff, if they did not hang it on the wall. There used to be small areas and rooms used as kitchen, cowshed and web room. There was not so much furniture in the houses, maybe only one bed for the master and his wife.

C

The Viking Age by Carl, Alexander, Emil, Henrik, Hampus B, Sam & Hampus E
The Vikings lived as farmers, traders, warriors and explorers. In the 8^th century many Vikings left their homes. One reason was because they began to be too many. Some of them wanted to have their own soil, and the soil in Scandinavia was not good enough. The Vikings started to build ships and sailed out on the sea and landed on other places outside Scandinavia. The Vikings went both east and west. They sailed up the rivers. The biggest rivers were Rhine, Rhone, Seine and Loire. Many Vikings settled around the rivers. In the 10^th century some Vikings settled in Paris. They began to forget their old traditions. Most of them became Christian and got married. There were others who settled in Spain and the Mediterranean Sea. More proof of how far the Vikings sailed, you can find in the Viking item that was found abroad. This is especially concerning places where the Vikings had settled. In L’anse Aux-Meadows in Newfoundland, they found enough to reconstruct a longhouse.

The Vikings lived near the sea and were very good at build boats and ships. They built large and broad ships with square sails to transport timber, millstones, cattle and wool. These ships were kind of slow, so for the thieving there were built special war ships. The ordinary Viking ship was the long ship. It had a mast and oars, and demanded between 24 to 50 men. If it had an animal head in front of the ship, this was a drake ship. The sail could be taken down when the Vikings should sneak on enemies. The Vikings use only a big sail. The trade ship was smaller than the long ship, but used still to long travel on stormy waters, for example between Norway and Iceland. When the ships were built, they used long, thin planks of ash or oak. They were placed overlapped on each other. Long rowing boats were used for shorter travel on the sea, for example between islands.

Iron was important. The Vikings were very good at process iron. They used iron axes to cut down timber to their houses and wood to their fires. On the ground were there forest been, the farmers grew crops. The blacksmiths did not only make axes and weapons, but they also made things in bronze and gold.

Weapons etc: The most famous weapon the Vikings had was the double-egged sword. They also had shields, throw-spears, battleaxes and bows. The weapons could be decorated with gold and silver, especially the swords. Those helmets that was made of iron was the best. Most helmets had nose protection and sometimes even eye bows. They never had horns. The chain mails took long time to make and were very expensive. Sometimes they had a little piece of chain mail as a neck protection. The Vikings had round shields made of tree that was sharp coloured. They were about one metre in diameter, which was enough to protect the neck to the thigh.  When you were onboard you placed the shields on the rail to the rowing people against spears and arrows. The axes were used both as a weapon and a tool, but the weapon had longer edge.

A famous Viking was Leif Eriksson. He was from Norway and was an explorer. He became famous because he discovered the Faeroe Islands and America. He named America to Vinland.

It is thanks to the Vikings that we know so much about them and how the ships look alike. They buried many of their Vikings in ships and dug them down.

D

Trade by Carl, Alexander, Emil & Henrik
The traders got get all the things they wanted, because they had good connections with the Arabic people. And they had good connections with China. The traders in Scandinavia wanted to find new places were they could buy and sell new things. Some of the great trade cities were Dublin (Ireland), Kiev (in Russia), and also Birka (Sweden). The traders brought iron, wood and fur. Then they traded it for example wine, gold, silk, slaves and salt.

The Viking traders always risked to be attacked by robbers. To sea, the ships could risk storm. Even on the river there were problems like rapids, especially on the river Dnjepr. To get past the rapids the Vikings lifted their ships and put them on rolls of wood. Then the ships could be pulled over land and launched on the other side of the rapid. 

The grave gifts in the traders graves have got much to tell about how far the Viking came on their journeys. There are things like pots that have probably been taken to Sweden from Eastern Europe.

E

The unique house – a ceremonial building by Oskar, Martin & Andreas
This is what the archaeologists first saw: “We saw very plainly a house when we took away the topsoil from the south part of the area. It contained a floor of yellow mud that was surrounded of marks from old walls. The house was only 13 x 6,5 metres big and had got three entrances, two on the south side on one on the north side. The roof was hold up by four poles.” 

Since 2001, they have made different excavations at those places where it had been the biggest concentrations of finds which have emerged through seeking of metal detectors. They have found objects of noble metals and high quality. Many house foundations have been found, some of them were bad kept. The plough and turning of the ground has destroyed the building leavenings close to the surface, for example from the Vendel time and the Viking time, about 550-1050 AD. But it worked to identify houses of different sizes. One of the houses in Uppåkra is special. Similar houses have been found at different places in south Scandinavia, which probably have been one of the Iron Age most important places.

The big roof which was carried by the big poles and the deep trenches for the wall planks, have probably carried an incredible construction. The house has probably been a ceremonial house. At the excavation of the house did the leavenings show that the house had an unusual design. It had been rebuilt many times. That is why the holes from the roof carrying poles had been so big, when they had been reset many times. The poles had been dug down to about two metres deep, which characterizes like extreme for a house that small. There were also pole holes in all the four corners, were there had been poles that corresponded the ones that held up the roof. The poles that surrounded the three entrances had also been unusual strong. The whole construction had been unusual strong for a house on only 13 metres.

F

A glass bowl and a beaker by Oskar, Martin, Andreas, Marina & My
When the archaeologists found the glass bowl and the beaker: “Before the excavation of the house started we did a search with a metal detector over the floor of the house. In the middle of the house the metal detector gave a strong reaction. Then we took away the earth carefully and found parts like pieces of glass. After that we cleaned them and saw that it was a beaker of bronze and silver, and next to the beaker was a glass bowl.”

The beaker had ribbons of thin gold with a stamped decoration on which heads and bodies of humans, snakes and horses were twisted together in a pattern. The beaker is unique and could have been produced in Uppåkra. The bowl was made of two layers of glass. The upper bluecoloured layer was decorated with a lotuspattern. The bowl was probably made in the area north of the Black sea. The bowl and the beaker can be dated to about 500 AD. That the beaker and the bowl had been put down beside each other under the floor of mud implies that the house could have got a special function. How the house looked and the finds that have been found, are interpreted that the house have been used for special ceremonies. The beaker and the glass bowl were to meet the guests and welcome them. They gave a beaker with something to drink to the guests that came to the celebrations in the house. It could also confirm an agreement.

G

Gold-foil figures by Oskar, Martin, Andreas, Marina & My
Gold-foil figures and dies have earlier been found on some places of Uppåkra. Most of the gold-foil figures have now been found in a house. The find of the gold-foil figures in Uppåkra is the second biggest find in northern Europe and the biggest find in an individual house. Five dies have been found. The figures are one or two centimetres big. The motif is different on each one of the figures, but some are identical with other ones that they have found in the place Sorte Muld(Bornholm, Denmark). Most of the gold figures have been found on rich places, just like Uppåkra and Sorte Muld. They were probably pasted on walls or poles in the ceremonial house.