Archaeology at Home - Notes on Things, Life and Time - Hein B. Bjerck
A Home from the Deep Past
Archaeology at Home - Notes on Things, Life and Time - Hein B. Bjerck
Hein B. Bjerck [+]
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Description
In the 1980’s, as a newly educated archaeologist, we discovered a large Stone Age settlement that contained some 20 dwelling foundations at Vega, Northern Norway. The site is very old, close to 9500 years, and the permanent houses at the site are among the oldest in Norway. We excavated the remains of one of these – also apparently a home to a group of humans that have long since vanished. The island still remembers many things about how it was at the time, and the settlement, the excavated home and the abundant artifacts still remember their people. A ‘presentistic’ perspective entangle past and present, the place, the encampment, the dwelling, and lithic artifacts, and produces a narrative rarely included in traditional ‘scientific’ reporting. Perhaps the Stone Age home and the homes of my father and uncle are not as distant as they appear?