Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
uplift, the coastal zone was an unstable habitat; in particular, it was subject to a
continual displacement of the shore that forced the people living there to move
their settlements, either because they were flooded or because they no longer had
direct access to the sea. Given the fact that these people were highly dependent
on changes in the sea level, sea-level curves and shore-displacement models can
be used to determine the chronology of prehistoric sites if they were originally
located on the shore. Similarly, well-preserved coastal sites can be regarded as a
record of the sea level at the time of their occupation and thus used as sea-level
index points. During every phase in the development of the Baltic Sea, the people
living in coastal areas were - to a large extent - forced to adapt their respective
economic systems to the prevailing environmental conditions. The first to arrive
were groups of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers who migrated to the late-glacial land-
scape as they followed the herds of reindeer. Especially in the recently deglaciated
areas of central Scandinavia, they were confronted with a dramatically changing
landscape with newly emerged land and a shrinking sea, which soon changed an
archipelago into dry land. In the following Mesolithic and early Neolithic peri-
ods, the coastal environment provided favourable conditions not only for hunting
game but also for marine food resources. While the communities inhabiting the
central and northern parts of the Baltic rim experienced the continuous emergence
of new land and ever-larger islands in the archipelago, a rising sea level reduced
the amount of land available for habitation by the communities along the south-
ern shore, who were apparently forced to move their settlements to more protected
spots - a little higher and further inland than the old flooded sites. After agricul-
ture and animal husbandry were introduced in the Neolithic period, the importance
of marine food resources as a source of nutrition decreased. At the same time, the
changes in sea level became less dramatic, although shore displacement continued.
From the time of the Bronze Age, at the latest, the Baltic Sea became increas-
ingly important for transportation and communication purposes. Landing places
and beach markets as well as specialized trading centres with direct access to the
sea were established during the first millennium AD almost everywhere on the
Baltic rim. Most of these can provide information on sea levels at the time of
their occupation and can therefore be dated by reference to shore-displacement
models.
Acknowledgements
This chapter was initiated by SINCOS (Sinking Coasts - Geosphere,
Ecosphere and Anthroposphere of the Holocene Southern Baltic Sea), a project funded by
the German Research Foundation. I wish to thank Sönke Hartz, Ulrich Schmölcke, Harald
Lübke and Sven Kalmring of the Archaeological State Museum of Schleswig-Holstein as
well as Thomas Terberger, University of Greifswald, Karl-Ernst Behre, NIhK Wilhelmshaven,
and Ingrid Fuglestvedt, Oslo University, who gave valuable advice, especially about the
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods but also about early Medieval period and general sea-
level changes. I have also to thank Michael Meyer, Institute for Baltic Research, Warnemünde,
who provided me with shore-displacement models for the Baltic area and, especially, for the
Wismar Bight. Finally my thanks go to Beverley Hirschel for tidying up the English in this
chapter.
