Pipstorn Skov (Pipstorn Forest) is located 3 km east of Faaborg close to the village Katterød. The forest covers a steep slope down toward the coast, situated amidst a dead-ice landscape at the southernmost rim of the ‘Alps of Fyn’. The forest is divided by a Weichselian Late-glacial, north to south-running erosional valley former by meltwater discharged from dead-ice masses once lying north of the site area. The terrain in the northern part is dry and in the southern part quite humid. In prehistoric times, the forest was less prominent and you could imagine the mounds having space around them and a view of the sea.
There are barrows from the Neolithic, round mounds from the Early Bronze Age, as well as barrows from the Pre-Roman Iron Age in the 0.65 km2 large forest. A total of 42 protected ancient monuments are located in the forest. In the surrounding area, many more have existed that are gone today. The graves are not particularly divided into ages. This indicates that the prehistoric people have related to the history that the older burial mounds told.
The Bronze Age mounds are particularly prominent in the landscape in that they are located out toward a clear lowering of the terrain. The long barrows, however, are not located in any particular relation to features of the terrain.
Pipstorn is an excellent sample of the connection between a particular terrain and a specific cultural function in pre-history – in this case, as a sacred area. The use of the area for such a long time indicates that particular shapes in the landscape have inspired specific actions and that the traces of these have been respected and maybe even sought out across time.
