Early and mid-Holocene coastal settlement and demography in southeastern Norway: Comparing distribution of radiocarbon dates and shoreline-dated sites, 8500–2000 cal. BCE

Abstract

In this paper we explore temporal variation in demography and settlement intensity in southeastern Norway during the Early and mid-Holocene. In order to investigate the temporal variation in demography and settlement we have applied and compared two different proxies: Summed radiocarbon probability distributions and site count data of shoreline-dated sites. The proxies display similar patterns, and we suggest that they indicate stability in settlement in the coastal areas of southeastern Norway between 8500 cal. BCE and 2000 cal. BCE.

Demographic estimates from the Palaeolithic–Mesolithic boundary in Scandinavia: comparative benchmarks and novel insights

“…Lack of 14 C-dates from southeastern Norway could potentially lend support to our estimates; however, Solheim & Persson [ 111 ] caution that a complete absence of 14 C-dates might result from either taphonomic distortion, cultural practices that left little or no carbonized remains, or survey intensity, seeing as 10% of their sample represent sites dated to the early Mesolithic by other means. We have not compared our sample to that of Solheim & Persson [ 111 ], and thus, it is not clear if our demographic estimates from this region are simply skewed towards low population figures as a result of sample size. However, Jørgensen [ 110 ], with reference to pit dwellings excavated in northern Norway [ 113 ], suggest that early Mesolithic activity might be under-represented.…”

“…Unambiguous traces of human occupation along coastal Norway do not appear until after the onset of the early Holocene [ 104 , 105 ] and especially after the receding fennoscandian ice-sheets facilitated safe passage across the Oslo fjord [ 106 ] from the Swedish west coast, where numerous and slightly older coastal locations are known [ 107 – 109 ]. Relative estimates from summed probability distributions of 14 C-dates from northern Norway [ 110 ], as well as multiproxy reconstructions for southeastern Norway [ 111 ], provide the only comparative baseline for our estimates. However, as relative estimates cannot be translated into absolute number of people, our interpretations and comparisons will only be in the most tentative form.…”

Shoreline Displacement, Coastal Environments and Human Subsistence in the Hanö Bay Region during The Mesolithic

“…This does not mean that the cold event did not have any impact on the humans and their living conditions, but there is no evidence implying that the change in climate resulted in altered subsistence or abandonment of settlements in the Hanö Bay region and adjacent areas. Recent studies suggest that the 8.2 kyr event had a lesser impact on the North European societies than previously thought [31] and that there might be a high level of resilience to climate events in coastal areas, as seen in southern Norway [29,137].…”

A Late Mesolithic Forager Dispersal Caused Pre‐agricultural Demographic Transition in Norway

“…Firstly, it is known that open-air settlement sites within the region pre-dating the Boreal period rarely contain carboniferous material suitable for radiocarbon dating. This is expected to have impacted severely upon the Early Mesolithic archaeological record from Eastern Norway, and to a lesser degree sites from the same period in Western Norway (Solheim and Persson 2018). This known taphonomic bias is also recognized in similar climatic regions outside Norway, and is thus probably not related to archaeological sampling techniques but to climatic and taphonomic factors (Mobley 1991).…”