The Rodhals kitchen midden - marine adaptations at the end of the Mesolithic world

• The Rodhals kitchen midden was located on a tiny stretch of land 18 km from the nearest major landmass in present-day Denmark. It dates to the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, roughly 4300 to 3700 cal BC. Its inhabitants practiced a remarkably broad-scale exploitation of marine resources spanning from the collecting of mollusks on the sea-shore, over open-sea fowling and deep-water angling to the killing of small whales. The sparse traces of terrestrial diet are mainly from cattle, sheep, pig and cereals dating to a late stage of the habitation. Strategic raw materials of bone and antler from large forest game were only occasionally imported from across the sea. In terms of artefact types and production modes, the material culture of Rodhals represents the ultimate stage of the local fisher-hunter-gatherer Ertebolle Culture and an initial stage of the farming-based Funnel Beaker Culture. The extreme marine adaptation seen at this site may reflect a historically extraordinary situation, where an indigenous population of foragers had lost major parts of its territory to immigrant farmers.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- Archaeology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Late Mesolithic

Neolithization

Radiocarbon

Faunal remains

Kitchen

midden

Marine adaptation

Fishing

palaeodietary

history

cycle

Archaeology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)