Alby, Öland

Alby is a village on the Baltic Sea in the Hulterstad district at the western fringe of the Stora Alvaret on the island of Öland, Sweden.

[2] The village prehistory dates to the Stone Age when settlers from the mainland migrated across the ice bridge connecting the island via the Kalmar Strait about 6000 to 7000 BC.

[3] In the earliest times villagers subsisted by hunting, fishing and gathering, but by 4000 BC farming supplanted that lifestyle, and continued to be the primary livelihood until 2006.

Alby is situated along the two-lane east coast highway, with the communities of Hulterstad and Triberga to the south; to the north lie the villages of Stagerstad and Stena.

The village of Alby, as well as the precursor civilizations from Stone Age to medieval time, is primarily developed on a narrow ridge running north/south parallel to the Baltic coast.

The earliest settlers built early Stone Age wooden huts at the fringe of a prehistoric lagoon at the northwest of the present Alby.

Archaeological excavations conducted over a period of years in the latter 20th century have revealed evidence of bear, marten, seal and porpoise, but also elucidate mesolithic hunting and gathering technologies through discovery of bone spears, moose antler harpoons and flint.

The Hulterstad Gravfeld is situated to the east of the coast highway and contains undulating barrows comprising over 170 individual burials, making it one of the largest gravefields on Öland.

By royal decree, detailed church records began to be kept by the latter 17th century in the form of births, deaths, baptisms and annual household censuses.

The village blacksmith's shop was constructed in this era on the west side of the coast highway, probably in the 18th century, and is extant as of 2006; it has been converted to a small museum.

The western fringe of Alby includes some grazing land and borders on the Stora Alvaret, the greatest expanse of alvar habitat in Europe.

The Stora Alvaret has an extremely thin soil mantle, that creates conditions of unusual adaptation and hence leads to a host of rare plant species.

This sandy coastal plain supports a variety of native grasses and beach wildflowers different from the alvar species on Alby's west side.