Rising waters and processes of diversification and unification in material culture: the flooding of Doggerland and its effect on north‐west European prehistoric populations between ca. 13 000 and 1500 cal BC

Abstract

The present paper discusses how post-glacial sea level rises may have led to material cultural diversification and 'atomization' of geographically extensive cultures or social territories. The resulting smaller social territories, with their associated material cultures, subsequently began to merge, possibly due to the development of better means of transport. Where the North Sea, at the beginning of this process of material diversification, represented a growing barrier to contacts, it later became a means of communication. In this paper, dates for material cultures follow those of Vang Petersen (1993).

Searching for the Scottish Late Upper Palaeolithic: A case study from Nethermills Farm, Aberdeenshire

“…The Howburn lithic assemblage, for example, is dominated by large flint implements which could not have been manufactured on the small pebbles that were locally available as coastal nodules. Furthermore, this flint is of a colour and quality not usually associated with southern Scotland and it is surmised to have come from sources such as Yorkshire (the closes source of in situ chalk flint; Ballin 2011) or Doggerland (Ballin 2016;Ballin & Bjerck 2016). Less work has been undertaken elsewhere but analysis of raw materials should clearly be a priority.…”

“…10.23), which the late Alan Saville (personal communication, May 2014) described as 'dubious'. We have chosen to apply north-west European terminology (names of industries), as the Scottish industries show the closest parallels with those directly across the now sub-merged Doggerland basin (Ballin 2016) (Table 1). The recognition and publication of a number of typo-technologically certain preMesolithic pieces and assemblages from the 1990's onwards has served to build the case for LUP activity in Scotland, and recently two of the pieces described by Livens have resurfaced (one piece discussed in Ballin & Bjerck 2016); the other piece is presently being prepared for publication by H. Anderson-Whymark, University of York (personal communications with Hugo Anderson-Whymark, November 2015).…”

“…Local developments, if they existed, have yet to be recognised. The presence of identifiable pieces in Scotland can only be understood on the basis of the existence of the socalled 'Doggerland Continent' (now covered by the North Sea), which we assume was inhabited by early prehistoric hunter-gatherers and which served as a springboard for settlement in this country (Fitch et al 2007;Sturt et al 2013;Ballin 2016). Existing finds cover Scotland from the south (e.g., Howburn) to the north (Orkney) and west (Tiree) ( Figure 1) suggesting that numerous sites once existed both within Scotland and within Doggerland towards north-west Europe and Scandinavia.…”

Routes of Evolutionary Geography

“…Проникновение потомков постаренсбургской общности (наследники финальнопалеолитической гамбургской археологической культуры охотников на северного оленя) с южной оконечности Скандинавии (Сконе), довольно быстро (не позднее 10 т. л. назад), вдоль норвежского побережья, завершилось на самых северных границах Лапландии (рис.1). В этих событиях, возможно, приняли участие и коллективы, обосновавшиеся на еще существовавшем тогда Доггерленде (Ballin, 2016). Поступательному продвижению на север, способствовали ускоренное освобождение этих участков от ледника (Кошечкин, 1975;Hald, Aspeli, 1997;Larsen, Lysa, Demidov, Funder, Houmark-Nielsen, Kjaer ,Murray, 1999;Moller, 2003) и использование водного (морского) транспорта (Tromnau, 1987) что косвенно подтверждается очень ранним заселением удаленных островов в незамерзающих водах Северного, Норвежского и Баренцева морей.…”

“…Изобретение специализированных эффективных орудий морского промысла (особенно, поворотные гарпуны) обеспечивало результативность охоты. Антропологические данные (Хартанович и др., 2009;Der Sarkissian et al, 2013;Хартанович, Моисеев, 2016) свидетельствуют (по данным Кольского Оленеостровского могильника, 3,5 тыс.л. назад) о хорошем физическом состоянии этой популяции охотников на морского зверя эпохи раннего металла и долголетии (более 60 лет) её членов, как мужчин, так и женщин.…”