The Technology of Early Settlement in Northern Europe; Transmission of Knowledge and Culture (Volume 2); Glorstad; Knutsson; Apel

Edited by

Kjel Knutsson [+–]

Uppsala University

Kjel Knutsson is Professor in archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient history, University of Uppsala, Sweden, but has also worked as a visting professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway. His research has a focus on Stone Age archaeology of Scandinavia but he has also carried out field work and published Stone Age materials from East Africa and China. He is specialized in lithic analysis.

Helena Knutsson [+–]

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

Dr Helena Knutsson is a consultant with focus on Stone Age archaeology and study of artefact production and use. Her main interests are irreconcilable. On the one hand psychology and sociology of life in hunting-gathering societies, and, on the other hand understanding of stone tools with the help of methods brought from material science.

Jan Apel [+–]

University of Lund

Jan Apel is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Deparment of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University (Sweden). His research covers stone tool technology and human evolution, stone age archaeology of Scandinavia and social complexity in prehistory. He has lead or supervised several large-scale excavations in Sweden and is currently involved in the research project “The Pioneer Settlements of Gotland”.

Håkon Glørstad [+–]

University of Oslo

Håkon Glørstad is Professor in archaeology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. His research covers Stone Age archaeology of Scandinavia, archaeological epistemology and cultural heritage management. Glørstad has been leading or supervising several large scale excavations in Norway and research projects in Stone Age archaeology. He is currently the museum director at the Museum of Cultural History.

This volume explores technology and communication in the early settlements of Northern Europe. The chapters discuss case studies and present overviews from the early and middle Mesolithic of Northern Europe. Special emphasis is put on the spatial and temporal transmission of knowledge and culture. The volume focuses on themes such as the transmission of specialised knowledge, the generative transmission of knowledge, the understanding of technology as somatic or incorporated culture in human society and the role of pedagogies and teaching in cultural sustainment and transformation. Other contributions discuss the relation between demography and technological developments, as well as the natural and cultural context for the transmission of culture. The understanding of the transmission of technology is closely interrelated to the nature and efficiency of social networks of contact and their social and physical framework.

The volume provides new answers to one of the fundamental issues of our time – how to understand and cope with radical changes.

Series: The Early Settlement of Northern Europe

Preliminaries

List of Tables and Appendices [+–] ix

Kjel Knutsson,Helena Knutsson,Jan Apel,Håkon Glørstad FREE

Uppsala University

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

University of Lund

University of Oslo

List of Figures [+–] x-xiii

Kjel Knutsson,Helena Knutsson,Jan Apel,Håkon Glørstad FREE

Uppsala University

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

University of Lund

University of Oslo

List of Contributors [+–] xiv-xvii

Kjel Knutsson,Helena Knutsson,Jan Apel,Håkon Glørstad FREE

Uppsala University

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

University of Lund

University of Oslo

Preface [+–] xix

Håkon Glørstad FREE

University of Oslo

This volume explores technology and communication of the early settlements of Northern Europe. The articles will discuss case studies and present overviews from the early and middle Mesolithic of Northern Europe. Special emphasis will be put on the spatial and temporal transmission of knowledge and culture. This subject addresses themes such as the transmission of specialised knowledge, the generative transmission of knowledge, the understanding of technology as somatic or incorporated culture in human society and the role of pedagogies and teaching in cultural sustainment and transformation. Other papers will discuss the relation between demography and technological developments, as well as the natural and cultural context for the transmission of culture. The understanding of the transmission of technology is, again, closely interrelated to the nature and efficiency of social networks of contact and their social and physical framework. Ultimately these question addresses one of the fundamental issues of our time – how to understand and cope with radical changes. This book provides new and different answers to this great problem of our time.

Chapter 1

The Early Settlement of Northern Europe: Technology and Communication [+–] 1-22

Jan Apel,Håkon Glørstad,Helena Knutsson,Kjel Knutsson £17.50

University of Lund

University of Oslo

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

Uppsala University

Introductory chapter. This volume explores technology and communication of the early settlements of Northern Europe. The articles will discuss case studies and present overviews from the early and middle Mesolithic of Northern Europe. Special emphasis will be put on the spatial and temporal transmission of knowledge and culture. This subject addresses themes such as the transmission of specialised knowledge, the generative transmission of knowledge, the understanding of technology as somatic or incorporated culture in human society and the role of pedagogies and teaching in cultural sustainment and transformation. Other papers will discuss the relation between demography and technological developments, as well as the natural and cultural context for the transmission of culture. The understanding of the transmission of technology is, again, closely interrelated to the nature and efficiency of social networks of contact and their social and physical framework. Ultimately these question addresses one of the fundamental issues of our time – how to understand and cope with radical changes. This book provides new and different answers to this great problem of our time.

Chapter 2

Postglacial Pioneer Colonisation of Eastern Fennoscandia: Modeling Technological Change [+–] 23-46

Mikael A. Manninen,Esa Hertell,Petro Pesonen,Miikka Tallavaara £17.50

Oslo University

Mikael A. Manninen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. His research covers hunter-gatherer archaeology in Fennoscandia, lithic technology, and environmental archaeology. Manninen has worked in several archaeological field and research projects in northern Europe.

University of Helsinki

Esa Hertell is Helsinki based archaeologist who has worked for several archaeological field and research projects in Finland over the years. His publications have concentrated on Stone Age lithic technology and long term land use patterns of hunter-gatherers.

National Board of Antiquities, Helsinki, Finland.

Petro Pesonen is a researcher in Archaeological Field Services in the National Board of Antiquities, Helsinki, Finland. He has lead a number of archaeological excavations and surveys in Finland. His research concentrates on Stone Age archaeology of the eastern Fennoscandia, dealing particularly with the chronological issues.

University of Helsinki

Miikka Tallavaara is an archaeologist currently at the Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki. His research covers lithic technology, human-environment interactions, and long-term human population dynamics. Tallavaara has also worked in several archaeological field projects in Finland.

The post-glacial environmental development and initial human colonization of eastern Fennoscandia provides exceptional possibilities to study how and why technological adaptations developed in a low population density pioneering situation as a response to radical changes in the environment. This entails research on the dynamic relationships between the developing environment, technology, demography, and contact networks. The present paper discusses the data presently available from the area of present-day Finland for studies concentrating on these questions and reviews recent research in this field with a focus on work conducted using material deriving from the southern and eastern parts of the country.

Chapter 3

An Examination of Theories on Lithic Reduction Methods in Swiderian Technology [+–] 47-61

Witold Grużdź £17.50

Paleolithic and Mesolithic Department, State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw, Poland.

Witold Grużdź holds a PhD in archaeology and works at Paleolithic and Mesolithic Department of State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw. His research is focused on Stone Age and Bronze Age lithic technologies and flint mining. Over the last few years, he was involved in research projects related to landscape of flint mining areas.

The following research is focused on Swiderian blade technology occurring in Poland at the end of Late Palaeolithic. It is a comparative study of lithic refitting research performed on few excavation sites which results were published by various authors. By comparing operation sequences recorded at these Swiderian sites methods of blade production are presented. The study discusses mostly opposed platform cores and different variants of their reduction. This is due to the fact that it was a most commonly recorded debitage on Swiderian sites and therefore the history of research has been strongly focused on such forms. Additionally, the study includes discussion on Swiderian technology seen through perspective of different experimental flintknappers.

Chapter 4

Continuity and Change in Late- and Post-Glacial Social Networks: Knowledge Transmission and Blade Production Methods in Ahrensburg and Early Mesolithic Northwestern Europe [+–] 63-98

Inger Marie Berg-Hansen £17.50

Oslo University

Inger M. Berg-Hansen is PhD candidate in archaeology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Her research covers Stone Age archaeology of Northern Europe with emphasis on technology, and archaeological method and epistemology. Berg-Hansen has been leading or supervising several large scale excavations in Norway.

At the end of the last Ice Age, Northern Scandinavia was colonized from the north European mainland by groups of hunters and gatherers. It seems that the entire coast from Bohuslän to Finnmark was settled within only a couple hundred years. At present approximately 550 sites dated to this period are known in Norway alone. However, we don’t know the character of these groups, how they were organized or the size of the population. Felix Riede has pointed out that isolation of population groups was a major threat to the survival of Late Palaeolithic societies in Northern Europe. This must have been of equal importance to the pioneer settlers of the Scandinavian Peninsula in the early Mesolithic. To the settlers their technology was decisive for their survival in an unfamiliar landscape. Maintenance and development of the technology would therefore be crucial to their success. Technology is closely connected to social and cultural practices, and communication and transfer of knowledge is thus both part of and essential to technology. Joseph Heinrich has argued that maintenance and development of technology is closely connected to population size and organization. Following this, and on the basis of recent studies of Fosna, Hensbacka and Ahrensburgian technology, I will discuss the implications for the population size and organization in Preboreal Northern Scandinavia.

Chapter 5

The Pioneer Settlement of Scandinavia and its Aftermath: New Evidence from Western and Central Scandinavia [+–] 99-137

Hege Damlien,Mathilda Kjällquist,Kjel Knutsson £17.50

University of Oslo

Hege Damlien is Associate Professor in archaeology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Her research covers Stone Age archaeology of Northern Europe, hunter-gatherers and lithic technology. Damlien has been leading several Stone Age excavations in Norway.

National Historical Museums of Sweden

Mathilda Kjällquist is a licentiate student at the department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University. Her research interests concerns the Mesolithic of southern Scandinavia, including lithic technology. Kjällquist works at The Archaeologists at the National Historical Museums in Lund, where she has nineteen years of experience of leading and participating in Stone Age excavations.

Uppsala University

This paper takes as a point of departure the analysis of complex blade industries as a proxy for cultural practices, socially learned and transmitted habits within a human network. Our main objective is to study how traditions and/or habits are protected and reproduced or changed as groups of people are confronted with changed natural and/or social environments. Our case study is the hypothesized population dynamics related to the pioneer settlement of Fennoscandinavia during the retreat of the Weicshelian ice at the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. This hypothesis is based on an analysis founded in a dynamic technological classification of complex blade industries typical for the first settlers. The existence of a distinct pressure blade concept across the Baltic and Scandinavian regions during the Late Preboreal and Boreal period has been identified within the 9th – 8th millennium BC, a technology that seem to have arrived with intruding ”Post-Swiderian” groups of people culturally derived from the western Russian plain. It has further been shown that a different blade industry were a direct percussion technique was used, was established by another stream of pioneers settlers along the west coast of Scandinavia with roots in the late Glacial continental Ahrensburg tradition. These two populations must have met in northernmost Norway during the Preboreal. During the time period from 8500 to 7500 BC prominent shift was also observed in the organisation of the Scandinavian Mesolithic lithic technology towards employing the demanding conical pressure blade concept, assumable of ”Post-Swiderian”, eastern origin. Concerning the regional identification and dating of the conical core pressure blade concept, a number of specific research problems have to be studied before the cultural process within Scandinavia in the 8th millennium can be more fully assessed. Of particular interest are the two regions where the eastern and the western traditions appear in the same time periods, respectively along the northern Fennoscandinavian coast and in the eastern polish lowland. It is the former area that is in focus in this paper. We will lay the foundation for a cultural analysis of this process by an investigation of the tacit evidence of this shift in technology by an in depth analysis of blade assemblages from a number of newly excavated sites covering the area from Scania in southernmost Sweden to central Norway.

Chapter 6

Raw-material and Blade Technology Variability: A Case Study of Mesolithic Pressure Blade Methods in the Wolin Island Region (North-Western Poland) [+–] 137-172

Michal Adamczyk £17.50

University of Szczecin, Poland

Michał Adamczyk, PhD, is a contract worker of University of Szczecin. His research interests are Lithic Technology and Experimental Archaeology, Stone Age in Central and Northern Europe and Landscape Archaeology. He has working experience in several projects in Poland and Norway, mostly on excavation, but also with documentation and analysis of lithics.

Despite over 150 years of archaeological research on Wolin Island (NW Poland), the Stone Age of this area still seems to be a marginalized issue. Therefore, since 2011 a detailed research focused on Wolin Island’s Paleolithic and Mesolithic has been conducted by the Author of this paper. As an results of the first stage of field research and examination of the archival records several Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites (including Mesolithic sites with Pressure Microblade method) were discovered. Moreover, the mentioned Mesolithic sites were grouped in clusters, differentiated by raw material and type of blade technology. At least two different concepts and following different Pressure Microblade methods were present. In this specific case, the technology seems to be somehow related to the qualities of the raw material. The situation can be described as: “same area – different raw material – different methods”. Is it then the matter either of chronology, small-scale cultural differentiation or technological opportunism. The following paper discuses possibilities of technological variability as seen from the experimental archaeology perspective.

Chapter 7

Early Mesolithic Regional Mobility and Social Organization: Evidence from Lithic Blade Technology and Microlithic Production In Southern Scandinavia [+–] 173-199

Mikkel Sørensen £17.50

University of Copenhagen

Mikkel Sørensen is Associated Professor at department of archaeology, the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. His research and teaching is focused on prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies of northern Europe and the Arctic, and on lithic technological studies. He is currently engaged in a project about Mesolithic wetland settlements in the bogs of Southern Scandinavia, which also has become a MA course topic at University of Copenhagen.

This paper aims to enlighten aspects of how the later part of the Maglemosian society was organized at the large regional scale. The study area is defined as southern Scandinavia, from Blekinge to central Jutland and northern Germany and the time period is defined relatively as the Maglemosian phase 3/techno-group 3. This phase is dated to the centuries around 7000 BC, i.e. the transition from the Boreal to the Atlantic pollen zone in southern Scandinavia. In all, 24 lithic assemblages from excavated sites in this area are analysed and 12 of these have been studied in deep by the author. Two distinct lithic technologies and their distinct craft processes are studied: the production of microliths and the lithic blade production. The study concludes that the conical core pressure blade concept has a clearly eastern distribution in southern Scandinavia. The western Baltic region was part of the pressure blade community of practice. The study points to a proposition that the conical core pressure blade concept might have arrived with people coming from the north (Scandinavia) into an earlier Maglemosian tradition.Middle Mesolithic Blade Technology in Sweden, c. 8th Millennium BC.

Chapter 8

Axes in Transformation: A Bifocal View of Axe Technology in the Oslo Fjord area, Norway, c. 9200–6000 cal BC [+–] 201-229

Carine Eymundsson,Guro Fossum,Anja Mansrud,Lucia Koxvold,Axel Mjaerum £17.50

Oslo University

Carine Eymundsson is a PhD student in archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo. Her project deals with changes in macro tool technology in Norway at the transition from Early- to Middle Mesolithic (ca. 8300 cal. BC), and it’s relation to an Eastern impulse and/or migration. Prior to her PhD scholarship Eymundsson has worked as a field leader at the Museum of Cultural History and have been in charge of several excavations.

Oslo University

Guro Fossum is a PhD student in archaeology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Her project deals with the 8200 cal. BP cold event and its impact on Mesolithic groups in eastern Norway. She has also been involved in large-scale Stone Age excavations in southeastern Norway.

Oslo University

Anja Mansrud is employed as a field archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. She is currently finishing her PhD on the Middle Mesolithic of North Eastern Skagerak.

Oslo University

Lucia Uchermann Koxvold works as a field archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Her research interests are related to the Mesolithic with emphasis on technology, refitting and raw material classifications. For the last five years she has been involved in large-scale Stone Age excavation projects in southeastern Norway.

Oslo University

Axel Mjærum is a field archeologist and former researcher at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. His research covers Stone Age archaeology, especially chronological subjects, and hunting and fishing traditions in southeastern Norway.

The first Mesolithic core axes were produced in South Eastern Norway c. 9000 BC. The raw material was flint, and morphologically the axes had a bifacial shape which closely resembles axes from other parts of Northern Europe. 3000 years later core axes were still produced, but they were made of locally available non-flint raw material. Nøstvet axes from the 6th millennium BC were produced with a very different three-sided production strategy. The article discuss the numerous transitions and variations in morphology, technology and raw material of Mesolithic core axes from South Eastern Norway, in the period between c. 9000 – c. 6000 cal. BC. This is based on finds of axes and debitage from axe production at sites in the Oslofjord area. The article also links changes in technology to changes in society, from a highly mobile pioneer culture to a situation with increased sedentism and regionalization.

Chapter 9

Transmission of Knowledge, Crafting and Cultural Traditions, Interregional Contact and Interaction, 7300 Cal BC [+–] 231-276

Eva David,Mathilda Kjällquist £17.50

CNRS Laboratoire Préhistoire et Technologie, Nanterre, France

Éva David is an international scientist, specialist in Prehistoric technology. In France, she is employed at the National Centre for Scientific Research. There, from the North European archaeological productions she studies, Éva David demonstrated that the way bone implements have been technically conceived reflects distinct crafting traditions. Thus, design of the equipement made of animal material used by the last Stone Age hunters are now used as relevant cultural markers to highlight Postglacial groups’ interaction and migration. Éva David is yearly giving lectures on this field of research at the University Nanterre.

National Historical Museums of Sweden

The new site of Norje Sunnansund, located in South Eastern Sweden, Blekinge, was chosen for its large potential within the research frame on psycho-socio-cultural transmission throughout know-how and how they diffuse in Mesolithic Europe. Indeed, on the one hand, it provides industrial products made from lithic and bone that participate in the same way to characterizing manufacturing traditions dated to the Early Holocene and, on the other hand, it also provides several ornamented pieces, whose blank-products are similar to those at the basis of the definition of the considered Mesolithic cultural groups. Moreover, the archaeological site is geographically situated in the border zone region between the Maglemosian stricto sensu, located in Denmark, and the northeastern tradition (Kunda-Butovo-Oka-Volga or Post-Swiderian related groups) in regions around and east of the Baltic Sea. The overview of similarities and differences in the archaeological material of Norje Sunnansund and its neighbourhood, where aspects of the two traditions seem to interact, yields this way an interesting methodological framework for characterizing the transmission, and make possible its modeling from the point of view of prehistoric human productions, insofar these are technologically defined. As a result, vertical transmission is displaying here in know-how related to the making of the most important part of the equipment (hunting gear), as traditionally encountered in the Northeastern tradition, and conversely the diffusion of adorned inset forms with a Norje Sunnansund art style into the Maglemosian 2 indicates direct contacts between specific social groups, probably craftsman hunters, belonging to both traditions in the Southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. This coincides to the introduction of new knapping techniques in Denmark, from 7500 Cal. BC onwards.

Chapter 10

Middle Mesolithic Blade Technology in Sweden, c. 8th Millennium BC [+–] 277-301

Michel Guinard £17.50

Uppsala University

Michel Guinard is a phd student at the department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University. His research interests concerns the Mesolithic of central and northern Scandinavia, including lithic technology and networks. Guinard works at Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis (SAU). He has more than twenty years of experience of leading and participating in Stone Age excavations. He has also carried out field work at Stone Age sites in Mozambique.

Recently, a hypothesis has been put forth that the characteristic pressure technology comprising conical cores spread from the Russian plain into northern Fennoscandia and the eastern Baltic during the 9th millennium BC. This technology was commonly applied in Scandinavia in the centuries to come. The article discusses the evidence from sites in the regions from southern Norrland in the north to southernmost Sweden, where this technology has been identified. A general survey of conical cores used in pressure flake technology in the area is also carried out. The data are integrated in a watershed analysis and it is argued that the main communication lines in the pioneer settlement of Sweden and most likely the whole of western Scandinavia followed the waterways along coasts and into the inland areas. It is demonstrated that different technological profiles can be identifies along the different drainage systems. It is demonstrated that initial occupation of the area happened in the late preboreal/early boreal period by groups belonging to the Maglemose 2 tradition. It also seems that pressure blade technology must have been introduced into southernmost Scania and Denmark, not from Poland and Germany as previously thought, but from central Scandinavia.

End Matter

Index [+–] 303-309

Kjel Knutsson,Helena Knutsson,Jan Apel,Håkon Glørstad FREE

Uppsala University

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

University of Lund

University of Oslo

Reviews

A new, solid platform for further knowledge development about this fascinating period in our common prehistory.
Viking: Norsk arkeologisk årbok

An important contribution to the settlement of Northern Europe.
Represents an incredible collection of articles focused on the time just after the Weichselian Ice Age. The three books contain a plethora of information regarding flora, fauna, geology and technology, stemming from decades of excavation and of research on the vast body of material unearthed, especially in Norway.
European Journal of Archaeology

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Technology of Early Settlement in Northern Europe

Transmission of Knowledge and Culture

The Early Settlement of Northern Europe, Volume 2

Kjel Knutsson [+–]

Uppsala University

Helena Knutsson [+–]

Stoneslab, Uppsala, Sweden

Jan Apel [+–]

University of Lund

Håkon Glørstad [+–]

University of Oslo

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