Bjerck et al./Marine Ventures, 3. The Emergence of Sedentism in Mesolithic Western Norway

During the millennia preceding the transition to agriculture in northwestern Europe, Mesolithic coastal hunter-gatherer populations utilized the rich marine environments for foraging, fishing, and shellfish collecting, and in many areas, sedentism and territoriality developed as a result of the increased focus on marine resources. In western Norway this process started around 8000 cal BC, and it appears that many groups were fully sedentary by around 4000 cal BC. Until now, however, it has been relatively unclear what the mechanisms driving this process were. In particular, it has been difficult to understand how mobility strategies related to resource procurement changed as a result of increasing sedentism. The key to understanding this is to look at the changing relationship between different types of sites in a settlement system. In this contribution, we will focus on two fjord sites, the rockshelters Sævarhelleren and Olsteinhelleren, which were used for short-term occupations by groups from coastal settlement sites during the period 7000-4800 cal BC. On the basis of faunal and other archaeological materials from these two sites, we argue that activities, procurement strategies and the length of occupation changed significantly during this time period, and this was probably related to changes within the overall settlement system in Mesolithic western Norway.