34 research outputs found
Southwest Norway at the Pleistocene/ Holocene Transition: Landscape Development, Colonization, Site Types, Settlement Patterns
This is an electronic version of an article published in the Norwegian Archaeological Review© 2003 Copyright Taylor & Francis; Norwegian Archaeological Review is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00293650307293.This article contributes a western Norwegian perspective to the ongoing
debate on the timing and nature of the earliest colonization of northern
Europe. Despite there being a theoretical possibility of Late Glacial
settlement, currently available data indicate a populating of the area around
the termination of the Pleistocene ca. 10,000 (uncalibrated) yr BP. The
earliest radiocarbon date in southwest Norway so far, 9750 BP, is only a
terminus ante quem. Environmental, economic, technological and social
factors involved as a result of the colonization process are discussed briefly,
and trends in the archaeological record are emphasized and commented on.
The economy reflected by the first complete annual subsistence patterns is
interpreted as having been logistically mobile, highly adaptive and generally
of opportunistic character. Particular attention is paid to Early Preboreal
coastal and inland settlement of the ‘Boknafjord’ and ‘Myrvatn/Fløyrlivatn’
groups, the latter characterized by well-preserved site structures such as tent
rings and hearths providing high-resolution radiocarbon dates and palaeobotanical
evidence