Vegetation history and human impact during the last 11 500 years at Lista, the southernmost part of Norway. Based primarily on Professor Ulf Hafsten's material and diary from 1955–1957

Carbonised Cereal from Three Late Neolithic and Two Early Bronze Age Sites in Western Norway

“…This proves that the hunter-gatherer population in western Norway was in contact with agricultural societies in other parts of north-western Europe at tha t time. This could be confirmed by pollenanalytical investigations in western and southern Norway that indicate forest clearance and an opening up of the vegetation from approximately 5200 BP (Bakka and Kaland 1971, Pr0sch-Danielsen 1996.In addition, there are traces of cereal cultivation in Norwegian pollen data as early as the Early and Middle Neolithic. Cerealtype pollen grains are recorded from the southern part of Norway from lake sediments (identified by Ulf Hafsten).…”

“…Cerealtype pollen grains are recorded from the southern part of Norway from lake sediments (identified by Ulf Hafsten). This event has a maximum age of 5685±-85 BP (TUa-665A) (Pr0sch-Danielsen 1996). Further northwest Hjelle (1995) reported finds of cereal-type pollen in structures dated to the Middle Neolithic.…”

“…To establish agriculture, an appropriate ecological setting has to be developed in the natural landscape (Rindos 1984).Landscapes that were created by the regression of the sea, like the Litsa area, were suitable for husbandry and cornfields (Pr0sch-Danielsen 1996). Here human beings did not need to create an agricultural landscape.…”

“…In Denmark, there was a thousand year long availability phase before cultivation expanded (Zvelebil and RowleyConwy 1984)!As in Denmark, there seems to have been a long availability phase also in Norway. The few pollen grains of cereals, recorded in the Middle Neolithic (Hjelle 1995, Kaland 1992, Pr0sch-Danielsen 1996, indicate that cereal cultivation at this time was on a limited scale, so limited that carbonised grains have not been found on the excavated sites.…”

Impulses of agro-pastoralism in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC on the south-western coastal rim of Norway

“…In the 1990s, pollen data from 58 localities were compiled, providing a descriptive, chronological, ecological and cultural framework for describing and interpreting the deforestation process (Prøsch-Danielsen 1996;Prøsch-Danielsen and Simonsen 2000a;2000b). Additionally, new data have been generated by measuring magnetic susceptibility (MSc) parameters to soil sections (Prøsch- Danielsen and Sandgren 2003).…”