The First Eastern Migrations of People and Knowledge into Scandinavia: Evidence from Studies of Mesolithic Technology, 9th-8th Millennium BC

Abstract

In this paper a team of Scandinavian researchers identifies and describes a Mesolithic technological concept, referred to as ‘the conical core pressure blade’ concept, and investigates how this concept spread into Fennoscandia and across Scandinavia. Using lithic technological, contextual archaeological and radiocarbon analyses, it is demonstrated that this blade concept arrived with ‘post-Swiderian’ hunter-gatherer groups from the Russian plain into northern Fennoscandia and the eastern Baltic during the 9th millennium bc. From there it was spread by migrating people and/or as transmitted knowledge through culture contacts into interior central Sweden, Norway and down along the Norwegian coast. However it was also spread into southern Scandinavia, where it was formerly identified as the Maglemosian technogroup 3 (or the ‘Sværdborg phase’). In this paper it is argued that the identification and spread of the conical core pressure blade concept represents the first migration of people, technology and ideas into Scandinavia from the south-eastern Baltic region and the Russian plain.

Keywords:

• Stone Age
• Mesolithic
• Palaeolithic
• technology
• lithic studies
• methods
• chaîne opératoire
• pressure blade concept

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A series of inter-Scandinavian workshops and associated research collaboration were made possible by a grant from the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council. In addition, Tuija Rankama and Jarmo Kankaanpää thank the Academy of Finland for financing their current project focused on the Sujala site. Helena and Kjel Knutsson’s part in the preparation of this paper has been made possible by generous grants from Magnus Bergvalls Stiftelse, Stockholm, Gunvor & Josef Anérs Stiftelse, Stockholm, Birgit & Gad Rausings Stiftelse, Lund, Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Minne, Stockholm, Stiftelsen Nordinfs Fond, Stockholm, Helge Ax:son Johnssons Stiftelse, Stockholm och Berit Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Stockholm. The authors would also like to thank museum staff, archaeologists and local amateurs who have allowed them to study their lithic collections and contributed valuable information and expertise. Thanks also to Susan K. Harris for revising our English text. Finally, we would like to thank the editors of Norwegian Archaeological Review and the two reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. In this text Scandinavia is defined as covering the present-day areas of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

2. The Nordic Blade Technology Network (NBTN) was formed in 2010 as a result of a series of network meetings held during 2009, financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council. The NBTN utilizes a wide range of approaches to study how human cultural processes evolved during the colonization of Scandinavia, up to the time when agriculture was introduced in its southern areas.

3. All BC dates in the article are given in calibrated calendar years. All bp dates are given in uncalibrated radiocarbon years (see Table 1 for radiocarbon dating).

4. Recent studies have shown that specific knowledge and care were employed in the selection and maintenance of hammer stones in Mesolithic Scandinavia (Eigeland and Hansen 2010). The word ‘only’ used here is thus relative to the more elaborated knowledge needed to construct and use pressure tools and devices.

5. The term ‘post-Swiderian’ is a misnomer derived from earlier research history where these cultures were considered to be descended from the Swiderian. This view has now been generally abandoned (e.g. Sulgostowska 1999, Zhilin 2005, p. 174); however, the appellation is still widely employed in the absence of a commonly accepted new terminology.

6. The ‘Pulli point’ is a sub-group of the tanged post-Swiderian points. It is distinguished from other post-Swiderian tanged points by its length, a large area of invasive ventral retouch at its distal end and small barbs next to the tang.

7. A third radiocarbon date of 9092±90 bp (Ua-13352; Veski et al. 2005, table 2, Kriiska and Lõugas 2009, fig. 36.3) on elk bone appears to be too late, since all the dates from the sediments above it are earlier (A. Kriiska pers. comm. 2011).