Scandinavia

[Robert Henvell]

Chapter 12 in The Last Hunters of Northern Europe,which was posted in Bookyard by Johannes,discusses the hunter-gatherer occupation of southern Sweden prior to and possibly during the Younger Dryas.Have any recent updates on this topic been published?

[aggsbach]

Robert,

Updated information can for exemple be found in:

Recent Studies in the Final Palaeolithic of the European Plain. Proceedings of a U.I.S.P.P. Symposium, Stockholm, 14.-17. October 1999 (Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter). 2002. 208 Seiten. 30 x 21,5 cm, 1120g, Hartkarton gebunden

Table of contents: Foreword. Bodil Bratlund, Berit Valentin Eriksen: Recent Studies in the Final Paleolithic of the European plain - an introduction. Else Kolstrup: Some classical methods used for reconstruction of Lateglacial environments in the European plain: potentials and limitations. Berit Valentin Eriksen: Reconsidering the geochronological framework of Lateglacial hunter-gatherer colonization of southern Scandinavia. Agneta Åkerlund: Life without close neighbours. Some reflections on the first peopling of east Central Sweden. Hans Kindgren: Tosskärr. Stenkyrka 94 revisited. Lars Larsson, Ronnie Liljegren, Ola Magnell, Jonas Ekström: Archaeo-faunal aspects of bog finds from Hässleberga, southern Scania, Sweden. Axel Degn Johansson: Late Palaeolithic settlement in South Zealand, eastern Denmark. Guntis Eberhards, Ilga Zagorska: The environment and the earliest settlement of Latvia, East Baltic. Jan Fiedorczuk, Romuald Schild: Wilczyce - a new late Magdalenian site in Poland; Bodil Bratlund: The faunal remains from Wilczyce. Jacek Kabacinski, Romuald Schild, Bodil Bratlund, Lucyna Kubiak-Martens, Kazimierz Tobolski, Klaas van der Borg. Anna Pazdur: The Lateglacial sequence at the Hamburgian site at Mirkowice: stratigraphy and geochronology. Michal Kobusiewicz: Ahrensburgian and Sviderian: two different modes of adaptation? Clemens Pasda: A short note on man in the Allerød/Younger Dryas environment of Lower Lusatia (Brandenburg, Germany). Stephan Veil, Klaus Breest: The archaeological context of the art objects from the Federmesser site of Weitsche, Ldkr. Lüchow-Dannenberg, Lower Saxonony (Germany) - a preliminary report. Marc De Bie, Utsav A. Schurmans, Jean-Paul Caspar: On knapping spots and living areas: intra-site differentiation at Late Palaeolithic Rekem. Philippe Crombé, Cyriel Verbruggen: The Lateglacial and early Postglacial occupation of northern Belgium: the evidence from Sandy Flanders. Eelco Rensink: Late Palaeolithic sites in the Maas valley of the southern Netherlands: prospects, surveys and results. Ebbe H. Nielsen: The Lateglacial settlement of the Central Swiss Plateau. List of contributors.
 
 
Hunters in a changing world: Environment and Archaeology of the Pleistocene - Holocene Transition (ca. 11000-9000 B.C.) in Northern Central Europe. Workshop ... XXXII in Greifswald im September 2002 (Ed.: Thomas Terberger, Berit V Eriksen

Both books are their money worth!

A short overview is given in :The Stone Age of northern Scandinavia: A review . Journal of World Prehistory ( can be found here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t6146g06054r/)

johannes

[Robert Henvell]

Johannes,
Mega thanks for the references.Will order them.

[trehinp]

While on the subject of Scandinavia, I'd like to ask a question...

I was in Norway end of August and, as I do every time I visit a new country, I enquired in a large bookshop for books on the prehistory of the country, in particular on prehistoric art...

I was shown a beautiful and apparently well documented book on the subject:
     Bergkunst
     Helleristningar i Noreg
     Gro Mandt; Trond Lødøen
     Der Norske Samlaget
     Oslo

There were absolutely magnificent pictures of Neolithic art in this book. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Norwegian is pretty limited and all the comments were in that language...

Would any of you know about other books on this subject that have been published in English? I am fascinated by the wealth of Neolithic art in Scandinavia and in particular in Norway.

Thanks.

Paul Trehin

[aggsbach]

Paul,

I visited the Copenhagen Prehistoric museum 1 month ago. The permanent and famous exhibition was closed but they have a wonderful book-shop. Unfortunately only a minority of the books in this shop were  written in english. Very frustrating! Some useful information in english about your topic can be found here:

CHIPPINDALE C., TACON P. The Archaeology of Rock-Art, 1999, 392 p., 192 fig., br (éd.) An archaeology of rock-art through informed methods and informal methods (P. Tacon, C. Chippindale) ; Finding rain in the desert: landscape, gender and far western North American rock-art (D. S. Whitley) ; Towards a mindscape of landscape: rock-art as expression of world-understanding (S. Ouzman) ; Icon and narrative in transition: contact-period rock-art at Writing-on-Stone, southern Alberta, Canada (M. A. Klassen) ; Rain in Bushman belief, politics and history: the rock-art of rain-making in the south-eastern mountains, southern Africa (T. A. Dowson) ; The many ways of dating Arnhem Land rock-art, north Australia (J. Clottes) ; The ‘Three Cs’: fresh avenues towards European Palaeolithic art (R. Bradley; Daggers drawn: depictions of Bronze Age weapons in Atlantic Europe (K. Sognnes) ; Symbols in a changing world: rock-art and the transition from hunting to farming in mid Norway (M. Wilson) ; Pacific rock-art and cultural genesis: a multivariate exploration (R. Hartley; Spatial behaviour and learning in the prehistoric environment of the Colorado River drainage (south-eastern Utah), western North America (A. Vasser) ; The tale of the chameleon and the platypus: limited and likely choices in making pictures (B. Smith) ; Pictographic evidence of peyotism in the Lowe Pecos, Texas Archaic (C. E. Boyd) ; Modelling change in the contact art of the south-eastern San, southern Africa (P. Jolly) ; Ethnography and

  COLES J.-  Shadows of a Northern Past: Rock Carvings in Bohuslän and Ostfold, 2005, 224 p., nbr. ill. (Anglais ) This book is the outcome of a prolonged period of discovery and research into the Bronze Age rock carvings of Bohuslän (Sweden) and Ostfold (Norway). Over 100 of the most complex and varied sites, containing many thousands of images, are presented in new plans and photographs. The variety and precision of the methods of recording have revealed hitherto unknown carvings and new details on many of the sites, including some of the best-known sites in all of Sweden and Norway. The images, of boats, humans, wheeled vehicles, wild and domesticated animals, ards, weapons and other symbols demonstrate great variability. A structural analysis permits some identification of particular artists, whilst the identification of dated styles of boat images allows some element of specific chronology to be presented. Over 800 rock carving sites, and their contemporary monuments, are mapped and described in terms of the evolving landscapes of the period 1500 - 300 BC. The current excavation programmes at the base of sites are outlined as well as the likely relationship between rock carvings and adjacent wetlands. The area explored in the book includes the World Heritage region in western Sweden and the whole territory of rock carvings examined forms one of Europe's greatest prehistoric cultural treasures.

Regards
Johannes

[trehinp]

Thanks for these two references Johannes.

The first book seems to cover a much wider domain than just the Scandivavian rock art. This is of course very interesting. I will put it on my Xmass gift list, even though I have already so many books on Rock art...

The second is apparently much more specific. I'm very interested as I have a minimal number of references on Northern rock art.

It seems that there are only schematic drawings in that Neolithic Norwegian and Swedish art, none of the fine naturalistic paintings or engravings such as found during the Palaeolithic. But befor saying that I would like to have enough information on known Scandinavian Rock art, knowing of course that "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence".

Among the questions aching for an answer then would be "Why refined naturalistic art only appeared in some limited regions of the world, primarily in the Franco Cantabrian area, in some places in Africa and a few places in Australia?"

Yours sincerely.

Paul