Download or read book Sea level Change in Mesolithic Southern Scandinavia written by Peter Moe Astrup and published by Aarhus Universitetsforlag. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seabed in southern Scandinavia contains numerous traces of a submerged landscape that is thought to be the remnant of a once important habitat for Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Large parts of this landscape were gradually flooded by rising seas between 9500 and 4000 BC and perceptions of the Maglemose culture (9500-6400 BC) have, consequently, been based almost exclusively on former inland settlements. As a result, Early and Late Mesolithic societies have been understood as almost diametrically opposed with regards to their reliance upon marine resources and their degree of sedentism. The main objective of the book is to investigate two questions that are directly related to our current understanding of the populations of the now submerged areas: 1) Do we have a representative picture of the spread of Early Mesolithic sites in southern Scandinavia, or does the weighting towards inland sites reflect the fact that coastal sites have not been identified below present-day sea-level? 2) How did sea-level changes impact Mesolithic populations at different temporal and spatial scales, and how were these experienced from 8000-4000 BC? The book presents an extensive and up-to-date review of various types of evidence from the Boreal period such as faunal remains, fishing instruments, d13C values in bones, settlement positions and available marine resources. These are used to discuss the extent to which marine resources were utilised in the Maglemose culture. Another central component of this book is a series of new coastline models made to determine the Mesolithic sea-level changes / coastline positions. The eight new coastline models are created to facilitate new evaluations of possible relationships between sea-level changes and cultural changes. On the basis of the new coastline models the book also presents the preliminary results of 47 diver investigations conducted with the aim of identifying potential coastal settlements from the Maglemose culture.
Download or read book Coastal Landscapes of the Mesolithic written by Almut Schülke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coastal Landscapes of the Mesolithic: Human Engagement with the Coast from the Atlantic to the Baltic Sea explores the character and significance of coastal landscapes in the Mesolithic – on different scales and with various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Mesolithic people were strongly connected to the sea, with coastal areas vital for subsistence and communication across the water. This anthology includes case studies from Scandinavia, western Europe and the Baltic area, presented by key international researchers. Topics addressed include large-scale analyses of the archaeological and geological development of coastal areas, the exploration of coastal environments with interdisciplinary methods, the discussion of the character of coastal settlements and of their possible networks, social and economic practices along the coast, as well as perceptions and cosmological aspects of coastal areas. Together, these topics and approaches contribute in an innovative way to the understanding of the complexity of topographically changing coastal areas as both border zones between land and sea and as connecting landscapes. Providing novel insights into the study of the Mesolithic as well as coastal areas and landscapes in general, the book is an important resource for researchers of the Mesolithic and coastal archaeology.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Europe s Drowned Landscapes written by Geoff Bailey and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access volume provides for the first time a comprehensive description and scientific evaluation of underwater archaeological finds referring to human occupation of the continental shelf around the coastlines of Europe and the Mediterranean when sea levels were lower than present. These are the largest body of underwater finds worldwide, amounting to over 2500 find spots, ranging from individual stone tools to underwater villages with unique conditions of preservation. The material reviewed here ranges in date from the Lower Palaeolithic period to the Bronze Age and covers 20 countries bordering all the major marine basins from the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Norway to the Black Sea, and from the western Baltic to the eastern Mediterranean. The finds from each country are presented in their archaeological context, with information on the history of discovery, conditions of preservation and visibility, their relationship to regional changes in sea-level and coastal geomorphology, and the institutional arrangements for their investigation and protection. Editorial introductions summarise the findings from each of the major marine basins. There is also a final section with extensive discussion of the historical background and the legal and regulatory frameworks that inform the management of the underwater cultural heritage and collaboration between offshore industries, archaeologists and government agencies. The volume is based on the work of COST Action TD0902 SPLASHCOS, a multi-disciplinary and multi-national research network supported by the EU-funded COST organisation (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The primary readership is research and professional archaeologists, marine and Quaternary scientists, cultural-heritage managers, commercial and governmental organisations, policy makers, and all those with an interest in the sea floor of the continental shelf and the human impact of changes in climate, sea-level and coastal geomorphology.
Download or read book Man and Sea in the Mesolithic written by Anders Fischer and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 1995 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of Mesolithic coastal settlements is based on the Man and Sea symposium organized by the Danish Forest and Nature Agency in 1993. The book concentrates on northern Europe, with new studies of the post-glacial transgression of southern Scandinavia, and descriptions of newly-excavated settlements. Regional studies from Norway, Sweden and the East Baltic countries present a large amount of recent data, and demonstrate the importance and the benefits of coastal sites.
Download or read book Prehistoric rock art in Scandinavia written by Courtney Nimura and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scandinavia is home to prolific and varied rock art images among which the ship motif is prominent. Because of this, the rock art of Scandinavia has often been interpreted in terms of social ritual, cosmology, and religion associated with the maritime sphere. This comprehensive review is based on the creation of a Scandinavia-wide GIS database for prehistoric rock art and reexamines theoretical approaches and interpretations, in particular with regard to the significance of the ship and its relationship to a maritime landscape Discussion focuses on material agency as a means to understanding the role of rock art within society. Two main theories are developed. The first is that the sea was fundamental to the purpose and meaning of rock art, especially in the Bronze Age and, therefore, that sea-level/shoreline changes would have inspired a renegotiation of the relationship between the rock art sites and their intended purpose. The fundamental question posed is: would such changes to the landscape have affected the purpose and meaning of rock art for the communities that made and used these sites? Various theories from within and outside of archaeology are drawn on to examine environmental change and analyze the rock art, led to second theory: that the purpose of rock art might have been altered to have an effect on the disappearing sea. The general theory that rock art would have been affected by environmental change was discussed in tandem with existing interpretations of the meaning and purpose of rock art. Imbuing rock art with agency means that it could be intertwined in an active web of relations involving maritime landscapes, shoreline displacement and communities. Though created in stone and fixed in time and place, rock art images have propagated belief systems that would have changed over time as they were re-carved, abandoned and used by different groups of inhabitants. In the thousands of years rock art was created, it is likely that shoreline displacement would have inspired a renegotiation of the purpose and meaning of the imagery situated alongside the Scandinavian seas. This journey through a prehistoric Scandinavian landscape will lead us into a world of ancient beliefs and traditions revolving around this extraordinary art form.
Download or read book Case Studies in European Prehistory written by Peter Bogucki and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a broad overview of the current research questions facing archaeologists working in Europe. The book uses a case-study method in which a number of archaeologists discuss their work and reflect on their goals and approaches. The emphasis is on the intellectual process of archaeology, not just the techniques and results. Chronological coverage is provided from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age and over much of the European continent.
Download or read book Europe s Lost Frontiers Volume 1 written by Vincent Gaffney and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe’s Lost Frontiers was the largest directed archaeological research project in Europe, investigating the inundated landscapes of the Early Holocene North Sea – often referred to as ‘Doggerland’. The first in a series of monographs presenting the results of the project, this book provides the context of the study and method statements.
Download or read book Monumental Times written by Richard Bradley and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2024-01-31 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Bradley's latest thought provoking re-examination of familiar monumental archaeology drawing on latest discussions of multi-temporality and the implications of new levels of analysis afforded by developments in archaeological sciences such as DNA, radiocarbon dating and isotopes. This book is concerned with the origins, uses and subsequent histories of monuments. It emphasises the time scales illustrated by these structures, and their implications for archaeological research. It is concerned with the archaeology of Western and Northern Europe, with an emphasis on structures in Britain and Ireland, and the period between the Mesolithic and the Viking Age. It begins with two famous groups of monuments and introduces the problem of multiple time scales. It also considers how they influence the display of those sites today – they belong to both the present and the past. Monuments played a role from the moment they were created, but approaches to their archaeology led in opposite directions. They might have been directed to a future that their builders could not control. These structures could be adapted, destroyed, or left to decay once their significance was lost. Another perspective was to claim them as relics of a forgotten past. In that case they had to be reinterpreted. The first part of this book considers the rarity of monumental structures among hunter-gatherers, and the choice of building materials for Neolithic houses and tombs. It emphasises the difference between structures whose erection ended the use of significant places, and those whose histories could extend into the future. It also discusses ‘megalithic astronomy’ and ancient notions of time. Part Two is concerned with the reuse of ancient monuments and asks whether they really were expressions of social memory. Did links with an ‘ancestral past’ have much factual basis? It contrasts developments during the Beaker phase with those of the early medieval period. The development of monumental architecture is compared with the composition of oral literature.
Download or read book Submerged Prehistory in the Americas written by John M. O’Shea and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-08 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an overview of the exciting new developments in underwater research in North America, ranging from new approaches for discovering submerged sites to an assessment of how these findings challenge the understanding of the North American past. Archaeological sites preserved on the world’s continental shelves are relevant to a wide range of major research questions and their importance increases with the heightened awareness of climate change and rising modern sea levels. Once thought lost forever, these sites survive underwater, preserved from the ravages of modern farming and development. To investigate the submerged landscapes, archaeologists use many of the same technologies developed for discovery of shipwrecks but, couple them with anthropological and environmental models to identify and study the way of life of people residing in these ancient lands. In this book, leading figures associated with submerged site exploration share an emphasis on the conduct and results of underwater research. It will be a fascinating read for advanced students of Archaeology, History and Environmental Studies. This volume was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology.
Download or read book Life and Death in the Mesolithic of Sweden written by Mats Larsson and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 20 years a vast number of new and important Swedish Mesolithic sites have been excavated and published in different ways as articles, books and site reports. As yet there has been no study that tries to bring the loose ends together and so the main task of this important new work by one of Sweden’s leading prehistorians is to provide an extensive overview of some of the main sites and results. The timespan is long: c. 10 000-4000 BC and the amount and choice of data very large so rather than attempt to describe everything in detail Mats Larsson focuses on a series of fundamental research perspectives concerning Mesolithic lifeways and settlement patterns and chooses key sites to illustrate them. The emphasis is on southern and middle Sweden, though the country’s northern regions are in no way forgotten. This companion piece to the author’s recent successful volume Paths Towards a New World: Neolithic in Sweden, written for a general audience is also a must for all those archaeologists interested in the Mesolithic of Northern Europe and would be students of prehistory
Download or read book Ancient Scandinavia written by T. Douglas Price and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-12 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scandinavia, a land mass comprising the modern countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, was the last part of Europe to be inhabited by humans. Not until the end of the last Ice Age when the melting of huge ice sheets left behind a fresh, barren land surface, about 13,000 BC, did the first humans arrive and settle in the region. The archaeological record of these prehistoric cultures, much of it remarkably preserved in Scandinavia's bogs, lakes, and fjords, has given us a detailed portrait of the evolution of human society at the edge of the inhabitable world. In this book, distinguished archaeologist T. Douglas Price provides a history of Scandinavia from the arrival of the first humans to the end of the Viking period, ca. AD 1050. The first book of its kind in English in many years, Ancient Scandinavia features overviews of each prehistoric epoch followed by illustrative examples from the region's rich archaeology. An engrossing and comprehensive picture of change across the millennia emerges, showing how human society evolved from small bands of hunter-gatherers to large farming communities to the complex warrior cultures of the Bronze and Iron Ages, cultures which culminated in the spectacular rise of the Vikings at the end of the prehistoric period. The material evidence of these past societies--arrowheads from reindeer hunts, megalithic tombs, rock art, beautifully wrought weaponry, Viking warships--give vivid testimony to the ancient peoples of Scandinavia and to their extensive contacts with the remote cultures of the Arctic Circle, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean
Download or read book The Remembered Land written by Jim Leary and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-22 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did small-scale societies in the past experience and respond to sea-level rise? What happened when their dwellings, hunting grounds and ancestral lands were lost under an advancing tide? This book asks these questions in relation to the hunter-gatherer inhabitants of a lost prehistoric land; a land that became entirely inundated and now lies beneath the North Sea. It seeks to understand how these people viewed and responded to their changing environment, suggesting that people were not struggling against nature, but simply getting on with life – with all its trials and hardships, satisfactions and pleasures, and with a multitude of choices available. At the same time, this loss of land – the loss of places and familiar locales where myths were created and identities formed – would have profoundly affected people's sense of being. This book moves beyond the static approach normally applied to environmental change in the past to capture its nuances. Through this, a richer and more complex story of past sea-level rise develops; a story that may just have resonance for us today.
Download or read book Extreme Events in Human Evolution From the Pliocene to the Anthropocene written by Huw Groucutt and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Contributions to the Mesolithic in Europe written by Pierre M. Vermeersch and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Earliest Settlement of Scandinavia and Its Relationship with Neighbouring Areas written by Lars Larsson and published by Coronet Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hacksilber.
Download or read book Oceans of Archaeology written by Anders Fischer and published by Aarhus Universitetsforlag. This book was released on 2019-09-09 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vast coastal plains that vanished below the waves thousands of years ago were highways to new territories and a cornucopia of natural riches for early humankind. Oceans of Archaeology presents these virtually unexplored areas of the archaeological world map. It scrutinises the submerged early prehistory of Europe and reveals a richness and diversity unmatched around the globe. Specialists from ten countries join forces to tell of flooded settlements, enigmatic sacred places, amazing art and skillful navigation. Multifarious traces of food preparation, flintworking, hunting and fishing vividly illustrate Stone Age daily life. While children's footprints lead the way to new investigations of early prehistoric life in these now inundated landscapes.
Download or read book Under the Sea Archaeology and Palaeolandscapes of the Continental Shelf written by Geoffrey N. Bailey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on issues of method and interpretation in studies of submerged landscapes, concentrating on illustrations and case studies from around Europe with additional examples from other parts of the world. Such landscapes were once exposed as dry land during the low sea levels that prevailed during the glacial periods that occupied most of the past million years and provided extensive new territories for human exploitation. Their study today involves underwater investigation, using techniques and strategies which are clearly set out in these chapters. The underwater landscape provides a rich source of information about the archaeology of human settlement and long-term changes in environment, climate and sea-level. This book highlights how such information can be revealed and interpreted. The examples presented here and the focus on techniques make this book of worldwide relevance. Chapters describe examples of underwater archaeological investigation as well as collaboration with offshore industries and legal, management and training issues relating to underwater cultural heritage. Such studies point to the significance of this drowned landscape, and readers are invited to consider its human impact in terms of past settlement and population dispersal through palaeolandscape reconstruction and interpretation in relation to broader themes in human prehistory. This volume is based on work from COST Action SPLASHCOS, a four-year multi-disciplinary and multi-national research program supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) and has something to benefit all those with an interest in the sea floor of the continental shelf and the archaeological and social impact of sea-level change, including archaeologists, marine scientists, geographers, cultural-heritage managers, commercial and governmental organisations, policy makers and interested members of the public.
