Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
such as harpoons made of bone and antler, silex tanged points and scrapers as well
as numerous reindeer bones indicate that they were occupied during the younger
Dryas period by reindeer hunters of the Swiderian group with connections to the
Ahrensburgian group, who came to the region from their base camps in Lithuania or
East Prussia as they followed the summer migration of the reindeer herds (Zagorska
1999
,
2007b
).
A similar preference for the occupation of river terraces on three different levels
by the reindeer-hunter communities of the Swiderian, Brommian and Ahrensburgian
groups during the Allerød and Younger Dryas has also been observed in Lithuania
(Rimantiene
1994
,
1998
).
Compared to the relatively moderate environmental changes that the reindeer-
hunter communities experienced during the Younger Dryas in the eastern Baltic,
the first colonizers of the territories of western Sweden and south-eastern Norway
had to face truly dramatic changes in their habitation area. At the beginning of
the Holocene at 9,500 cal. BC, this region was still largely covered by glacial ice:
according to Boaz (
1999
), final deglaciation occurred here during the Preboreal,
which means that the landscape was ice-free around 8,200 cal. BC. The swift retreat
of the Pleistocene ice mass during this phase led to extremely dynamic and short-
lived environments with a particularly high sea level. Large parts of the present
landscape became inundated during this period. However, due to the rapid iso-
static land uplift following deglaciation, the highest points of the moraines emerged
from the sea and formed a fast-growing archipelago, which provided favourable
conditions for the communities that were especially adapted to life in a maritime
landscape as hunters of marine mammals and fishermen (Fischer
1996
, Kindgren
1996
).
How these communities depended on the environment and their adaptation to the
specific challenges of changing coastlines can be clearly seen at a site that was dis-
covered at Stunner, Ski district, in the vicinity of Oslo (Gustafson
1999
). Although
there has not yet been any excavation, more than 700 artefacts made of silex and
quartz were salvaged as surface finds on a dry stony surface. The site is flanked by
two hills and lies on ground that is 165 m above the present sea level (Fig.
15.5
).
Fuglestvedt's (
1999
) analysis of the artefacts showed that the site was inhabited by
the Fosna-Hensbacka group during the Preboreal.
More precise dating was possible with the help of the regional sea-level curve and
the shore-displacement model developed from it (Sørensen
1979
, Gustafson
1999
).
These prove that the regional sea level fell rapidly after deglaciation - calculated at
a rate of 10 m/100 years between 10,000 and 7,000 cal. BC (Fig.
15.6
).
The topography of the Stunner site indicates that it would only have been attrac-
tive for habitation when the sea level was between 160 and 162 m above the
present level. Only then would the settlement have been located on an island in
the archipelago and thus exposed to the sea. It would have been secure from storm
floods and had access to a small strait and a bay, which could be used as a safe har-
bour for boats. Already at a sea level of 150 m above the present level, access to the
strait would have been closed and the shore more than 1 km away.
