Hein Bjartmann Bjerck

Colonizing Seascapes: Comparative Perspectives on the Development of Maritime Relations in Scandinavia and Patagonia

The lowering of global sea level during the Pleistocene by more than 100 m and subsequent inundation of coastal areas constitutes a problem in terms of general research on early maritime-oriented societies. However, post-glacial isostatic rise in glaciated regions has produced raised shorelines of Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene age, e.g., in Scandinavia, Patagonia, and North America. As these regions contain the oldest preserved coastal areas, they are imperative for the understanding of the development of maritime hunter-gatherers. The extensive Norwegian coastline appears to have been colonized in the course of the few hundred years around 9500 cal B.C. An overwhelming majority of Early Holocene sites are found in the fiord/skerry coastal landscape, indicating that marine resources were vital in the subsistence pattern of people occupying the region. The lithic tradition is clearly linked to specialized megafauna hunters in the continental plains (the Ahrensburgian complex of northwestern Europe), but the facts about and dynamics of the development of the marine subsistence pattern are unclear. This paper focuses on this problem—with comparative perspectives towards the emergence of maritime foragers in Patagonia.

The Fosna‐N⊘stvet problem. A consideration of archaeological units and Chronozones in the South Norwegian Mesolithic period

The Tapes transgression has distorted the archaeological record, especially in the Western Norwegian Mesolithic Period. The concept of two distinct archaeological units, the ‘Fosna culture’ and the ‘N⊘stvet culture’, is mainly based on a ‘false contrast’ in the archaeological material, created by the transgression. A three‐phase model, similar to the provisional chronological framework for South‐eastern Norway, is indicated by the analysis of traditional typological elements in 16 lithic assemblages, ca. 9500–6000 years B.P. The Fosna Tradition, older than ca. 9000 years B.P., is essentially unchanged from earlier descriptions. The Early Microblade Tradition, ca. 9000–7000 years B.P., is dominated by N⊘stvet elements, yet some Fosna elements are present. Blade cores and blades appear to be chronologically significant. The Late Microblade Tradition, ca. 7000–5200 years B.P., does not include Fosna elements. Abundant bipolar cores is an important characteristic. An independent analysis of blades and blade t...

Norwegian Archaeological Review 1968–2008: True Trends?

The 40th volume of Norwegian Archaeological Review (NAR) has arrived, safe and sound, with our subscribers. These four decades of scientific discourse – articles, discussions, book reviews – have been times of changing methods, theories and research foci, and numerous reorientations towards other disciplines. This has been a period of an accelerating numbers of actors, institutions, inventories and excavations, sites and artefacts, publication channels and scientific contributions within the archaeological discipline. After all this, the journal’s aims and scope are nearly the same – and the array of contributions reflects important trends in the archaeological research history. Between the lines – more subtle, but increasingly more tangible in parallel with the journal’s age – one may trace the discipline’s changing cultural surroundings. The editors have taken this opportunity to look back. The publisher has made the 1968 NAR Vol. 1 available (free) at our website. We have prepared an extended Editorial, exploring the journal’s content. And we are proud to present interviews with three archaeologists that are all well known to our readers. Bjørn Myhre, NAR’s alpha editor as we have chosen to label him, reveals interesting details about the formation and early developments of the journal. Ian Hodder and Ruth Tringham describe their own trajectories as highly active players in the reorientations in archaeology through these four decades. All in all, these comprise a multitude of interesting perspectives and important information that rarely surface in authorized research histories – which we hope our readers will appreciate. Journals with a long lasting and stable editorial profile are of particular interest in the study of a discipline’s development. For the most part, we have to rely on the few and honourable scholars that have taken the trouble to study and describe Archaeology’s history. Quite understandably, these studies have to simplify and generalize to get their message through. In comparison, a journal is ‘real life’, research history ‘in action’, which may illustrate diversity and complexity rarely expressed in the more styled trends. Journals constitute a viable source for insight in scientific processes, as also demonstrated in a series of other studies (e.g. Axelsen et al. 1995, Berglund et al. 1998, Bjerck 2003, Cornell et al. 1998, Glørstad 2002, Kristiansen et al. 2004). Reflecting on this, and studying the 40 volumes of NAR complete in my book shelf, I decide to give it a try: I register all contributions in an Excel database, aiming to detect empirical trends in theoretical perspectives and research foci, the dating and impact of reorientations, the inertness of established directions. It is a time-travel

Settlements and Seafaring: Reflections on the Integration of Boats and Settlements Among Marine Foragers in Early Mesolithic Norway and the Yámana of Tierra del Fuego

ABSTRACT The abundant Early Mesolithic (11,500–10,000 cal. BP) settlements at the raised shorelines in Norway and Sweden represent the earliest documented marine foragers in northern Europe. In the Scandinavian seascapes, both traveling and subsistence depended on seaworthy vessels. However, this highly mobile lifestyle was likewise dependent on settlements on firm ground. Departing from actor-network theory and symmetrical archaeology, I explore the structural relations between extensive use of boats, basic co-residing units, and activity patterns at settlements. The empiric basis for my study is the excavated Early Mesolithic coastal sites in the Ormen Lange project in Central Norway, dated to ca. 11,000–10,800 cal. BP. I suggest that the structural uniformity that is observed in the settlements may be related to the dependency on boats for subsistence activities as well as transport and settlements, creating human-thing dynamics that interlocked co-residents and boat crews, logistics, and activity patterns. This dynamic regime is also explored with ethnohistorical and archaeological references to the Yámana in the Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

Marine Ventures: Comparative Perspectives on the Dynamics of Early Human Approaches to the Seascapes of Tierra del Fuego and Norway

ABSTRACT The Marine Ventures project seeks to increase our understanding of the early relations between humans and the sea, especially subsistence and maritime voyaging. Through comparative analysis, we are interested in how hunter-gatherer societies have adapted to environmental, material, and social surroundings in two different, yet similar settings: the archipelagos of Scandinavia and Patagonia. The similarities and differences in the natural and cultural settings of the two regions are a valuable source for comparison that shed light on the general dynamics of human environmental interactions and regional landscape and social histories. Marine Ventures addresses these problems in four interrelated components: 1) colonizing seascapes and the dynamics of the development of marine foraging; 2) interactions between logistics (boats) and settlements; 3) dwelling types and settlement structure; and 4) legislation and heritage management. The Norway/Tierra del Fuego comparisons include a variety of distinct methodological, theoretical, and cultural heritage management approaches. The broad comparative framework of the Marine Ventures project is an approach that should be useful for archaeologists working in island and coastal settings around the world.

Looking With Both Eyes

of the human subsistence activities during the early Pre-Boreal – on islets in the outer skerries and on islands, on promontories and at fjord heads in inshore waters, clearly demonstrate the necessity for sea-worthy vessels and ultimate seamanship along the Norwegian coast. A total, or almost complete, lack of wood in the shape of long-boled, at least 70– 80 cm wide, straight and more and less knotless Quercus, Pinus or Populus trunks on the Norwegian coasts during the colonizing phase makes, as far as I can see, the production of log boats, as claimed by Glørstad, totally unlikely. The only logical explanation is what he rejects: a widespread use of relatively short (c. 5–8 m long) umiak-like rib-framed skin boats, which are light-weight, easy to manoeuvre, sea-stable and dynamic in waves (Gjessing 1942, Ames 2002, Bjerck 2008b, Schmitt in press). All the materials needed for building these vessels: framework, ribs, sinews, seal skins and waterproofing were at hand – everywhere. I do not at all follow Glørstad’s way of reasoning when he rejects the use of such boats during theMesolithic by stressing that umiaks are not proved to have existed earlier than the Thule culture. Daily life and population movements in the high arctic during both later and prehistoric times simply presupposes crafts with far higher seagoing efficiencies and safety margins than log boats which, when compared with skin-framed counterparts, are more or less floating, unstable logs. This is confirmed by experimental use of replicas of Danish Mesolithic dugouts (Christensen 1990). A ‘critical mass’ which contributes to deepening our understanding of the missing boats de facto exists: Stone Age rock carvings in central and north Norway depicting exactly what researchers for a long time have interpreted as umiak-like skin boats (Gjessing 1936, 1942, Clark 1952). It is difficult to understand why Glørstad, in his article, does not take this expressive source category into account for serious consideration. Though I disagree with a number of the premises put forward by Glørstad, and accordingly doubt the validity of some of the main conclusions, I welcome his fresh initiative and the unorthodox discussions he initiates by turning some of the pillars of Norwegian Stone Age research upside-down, and thereby awakening old elephants. My main objection applies to his claim that the situation during the colonizing phase in the early Preboreal can easily be compared with, and explained by, the situation during the rest of the Mesolithic. On the contrary, I would say: the challenges presented to the pioneer populations along the weather-beaten east Atlantic and Barents Sea coasts, may not, and should not, be understood in the light of the totally different climatic, floristic and faunal conditions prevailing alongside the calm in-shore waters and rivers in east Norway and south Scandinavia several thousand years later. Even today one must ask one self, what would I chose if I want to paddle along the outer coast of Norway – a log boat or an umiak?