Changing perceptions of rock art: storying prehistoric worlds

Temporality and changeability are here considered vital characteristics of rock art, expressed through shifting light and moving bodies. Demonstrating deliberate use of non-quantifiable elements such as light is challenging. Nevertheless, there are rock art sites where its importance is apparent. For example, the results of a 3D scan of the site Hammer IX in Central Norway show how the same lines make out both an elk head and a whale. Whereas in Vingen in Western Norway, 77 panels positioned across a scree slope, non-corporeal elements appear to be as important as the motifs. Approaching rock art in a non-representational framework, we consider the involvement of intangible elements as part of the constant knowledge production and shaping of realities at sites. This is the point of departure for our discussion of the making and use of rock art as a meaning-making and storytelling practice in Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic Norway.publishedVersio

A multiproxy approach to understanding the impact of the Storegga tsunami upon Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers across different regions of western Norway

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Mot normalt - nye gjenstander i gamle tradisjoner - et neolittisk samfunn i endring

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Petrified Life or Living Stone? The Problems of Categorisation. Exemplified by Fossils Found at Stone Age Sites in Rogaland, Norway

During archaeological excavations, artefacts are collected, tagged and stored. Based on these, archaeologists interpret peoples’ social identity, relations and even world view. However, a narrow range of ‘natural objects’ are also collected, often if perceived as essentially different from the surrounding gravel or debris; that is, if odd or beautiful enough to the excavator. Fossilised Sea-urchins (Echinoidea) are such objects and have been recovered from hunter-gatherer-fisher coastal sites dated to Mesolithic and Neolithic. They are predominantly found in refuse layers and floor contexts. In this brief article, based on finds of fossils at recent excavations in Rogaland county, Norway, the fossils are considered as illustrative of the fluidity and transformability of life in a Mesolithic ontology that avoids the separation of nature and culture. Hence, life is stone, and stone is life. Contrasting this is the archaeological practice of separating ‘cultural’ from ‘natural’. Does this limit our understanding of life in the Stone Age?publishedVersio

Quarrying in the Stone Age and Bronze Age in southern Norway studied as a socially situated phenomenon: Добиването на каменни суровини през неолита и бронзовата епоха в Норвегия, изучавано като социален феномен

In this paper, a chaîne opératoire analysis of lithic extraction sites and direct lithic procurement form the point of departure. This study was originally part of a PhD project comprising a detailed examination and contextualization of 21 extraction sites located in southern Norway. The 21 sites are in different topographical settings and landscapes, in different geographical regions, and they provided people in the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age with different types of rock. I build on the results from the original study of all the sites, but I will here emphasize only a few of them. To transcend the sites’ physical differences and acquire information about procurement practices, I operate with an extended notion of what constitutes a quarry. Whereas estimates of the scale of quarrying and the duration of exploitation are important, tracing the occurrence of the extracted rock away from the quarries in different dated archaeological contexts is equally necessary in order to understand the character and value of the exploitation of the procurement sites. Investigating lithic procurement from various angles, attempting to chart and visualize spatial and temporal variation in practices, different methods have been applied. An important aspect has been to establish an index of the intensity of exploitation. This enables a demonstration of a ‘norm’ and an ‘extraordinary’ manner of exploitation of quarries and other lithic procurement practices. Furthermore, lithic procurement studied as a chain of operations embeds a theoretical perspective where all practices are perceived as influenced and guided consciously or subconsciously by peoples’ cultural choices, traditions and social habitus. Together with the dated and contextualized sites and procurement practices, this offers a frame for interpreting the results of my study; some practices are common cross-regionally, while others defined regions and/or time-periods. Quarry studies therefore have the potential to provide insights into developing social relations and social-political strategies. Indeed, interpreted in a wider cultural context, it seems that how, and from whom or where you obtained your rock mattered more than the type or the quality of the rock itself

Evidence of the Storegga tsunami 8200 BP? An archaeological review of impact after a large-scale marine event in Mesolithic Northern Europe

Around 8,200 years ago, the Storegga tsunami hit the coasts of the Norwegian and North Seas. This event is well known from wide ranging geological and palaeobotanical work undertaken over the last 30 years. Outside of attempts at palaeodemographic models, however, exploration of the social impact of the wave on Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies living on the coasts of west Norway, the north and east British Isles, and around the southern North Sea basin have been less common. It has been widely assumed that the tsunami was a disaster–but what constituted a disaster for the Mesolithic peoples who lived through this event? What can we learn about life after natural hazards by considering the archaeological material from regions with distinct Mesolithic histories? This paper presents a review of evidence of the Storegga tsunami at Mesolithic sites from western Norway, the Northeast UK, and elsewhere around the southern North Sea basin. We consider the ways in which the social impact of the Storegga tsunami has been studied up till now and suggest an alternative way forward