Large continental shelf areas, presently submerged, were dry land during the last glacial maximum and early postglacial time. These 'lost worlds' are of outstanding interest because they are believed to have played a central role in animal and plant biogeography, and particularly human migration and cultural development. The large postglacial land area in the North Sea, known as Doggerland, has been studied in the British, Dutch and Danish sectors, but there is a gap in our knowledge in the Norwegian sector. By the compilation and interpretation of recent geophysical data (3D seismic data, high-and ultrahigh-resolution seismics, and bathymetry) and core data (sedimentology, micro-and macropaleontology, palynology, radiocarbon dating) we review the present knowledge about postglacial paleogeography in this area. In our limited core material, the terrestrial phase is represented by a hiatus or possibly by glaciolacustrine sediments, capped by 0.4-2.6 m of marine Holocene sand. We document marine transgression in the area at around 10-11 kyr cal BP. By analogy with similar areas such as Beringia, and with reference to archeological finds in Vest-Agder, Norway, we suggest the name Agderia for the Norwegian part of Doggerland. Agderia -a postglacial lost land in the southern Norwegian North Sea Introduction Large areas of the continental shelves around the world were dry land during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and were flooded during the sea-level rise in the latest Pleistocene or Early Holocene. It is becoming clear that these areas played fundamental roles for the dispersal and evolution of plants, animals and humans in the Quaternary. Prominent examples of such 'lost lands' are Sundaland, connecting the Malay Peninsula to Borneo, Java and Sumatra (Bird et al., 2005); Beringia, connecting Asia to America over the Bering Strait (West, 1996), and Doggerland ( Fig. 1), forming a land bridge from Great Britain to mainland Europe (Gaffney et al., 2009). Gaffney et al. (2007) published a comprehensive study of the paleolandscapes of Doggerland in the southern North Sea. Their 23,000 km 2 study area is located in the UK sector of the North Sea focusing on the Doggerbank (Fig. 1). Their study used a combination of industry 3D seismic data, high-resolution seismic and other geophysical data, and shallow cores and metadata from the British Geological Survey and other public sources. The integrated interpretation revealed a large prehistoric

The presence of submerged Stone Age sites along the Norwegian coast has been recognised for a long time. Until recently, however, they have not been treated as a topic of interest. From shallow waters, more than 80 submerged Stone Age sites are known in Norway, one of which is a probable ritual site with bones of several humans. Due to complex patterns of shoreline displacement and uplift after the last deglaciation, the present-day shallow water areas along the Norwegian coast contain sites from periods which are also represented by numerous sites on dry land. The submerged sites can provide better preservation quality for cultural remains of organic materials than settlement sites on dry land. This allows for a dynamic and informed study of Stone Age coastal adaptations, interactions and lifeways.

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The starting point for the present paper is a recent discovery of a well-preserved bone or antler fishhook, which turned up in a test pit during an underwater survey outside Tømmervigodden in Søgne, southernmost Norway. The hook is the third archaeological bone find from submarine context in Søgne. Tømmervigodden is located two kilometers away from Hummervikholmen, a submarine site known for revealing the oldest human remains from Norway, dated to the Middle Mesolithic (c. 8300-6300 cal. BC). Furthermore, a harpoon has been found in Lundeelva, approx. eight kilometers inland to the northeast. These finds demonstrate the extraordinary conditions for preservation of organic remains in the area. This article present the artefact and we discuss the issue of dating and deposition based on typology, context, and shoreline displacement curves. How old is the fishhook? How did it end up in the sea, and why is it so well preserved? The site is located in one of three areas along the Norwegian coast with potential for transgressed Mesolithic sites. The sea levels has fluctuated in Vest-Agder since the end of the Ice Age, and the sea has periodically been both higher and lower than today.The location close to Hummervikholmen and another Mesolithic site located on dry land at Tømmervigodden, initially suggested a Mesolithic date. However, the form of the fishhook, with a barb and elongated knob for attachment of the line, differs considerably from well-dated Mesolithic fishhooks in the region. The newly discovered fishhook has a distinct barb, an attribute previously considered a Neolithic trait. A precise dating would be crucial, but the closest typological parallels are undated stray-finds and C14-analysis would have destroyed the small object. Hence, dating of the hook requires a new assessment of the typology and chronology of the Stone Age fishhooks. Based on chronological and regional comparisons, we argue for a Middle Neolithic date of the fishhook from Søgne. Based on current knowledge of the local shoreline displacement curve and the formation processes influencing the seabed, we further suggest that the fishhook was lost at sea during fishing, when the sea level was at least five meters above present.

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