Persson et al./Ecology of Early Settlement, 10. Way Out East: Evidence of Early Maritime Technologies

This article presents new data from a multidisciplinary project about the earliest Mesolithic settlement in Eastern Middle Sweden. The pioneer sites in the Stockholm area, at 80 masl, can now be dated to 8000–7800 BC. Most interestingly, the project has revealed a number of archipelagic seal hunting stations, which in terms of the occupied islands’ small size and relative isolation are among the most extreme maritime settlements in Scandinavia. Excavations revealed dwelling structures and black lumps of "blubber concrete", a slag-like material, which is the result of heating with blubber oil. A concentration of burned seal bones indicates that hunting of Grey Seal was the main objective. The finds indicate a seal hunting culture capable of rather lengthy sea voyages and all the logistics of hunting and camping on small and remote islands. They give us rare insight to maritime technology during the early post-glacial colonization of Scandinavia.