DC3: Anchor points in a fluid world: Stone Age hunter-fisher-gatherer sites in the coastal zone and their social, economic and communicative significance

Objectives

Stone Age hunter-fisher-gatherers used and settled the coastal zone in the varied coastal environments across Europe. DC3 studies the location of Mesolithic coastal sites in a cross-regional and interdisciplinary approach to investigate the sites’ past social, economic and communicative meaning(s) in fluid and diverse seascapes and within hunter-fisher-gatherer (HFG) networks in different areas of Europe. Case-study areas from SE Norway, W-France and N-Spain will be compared to identify potential similarities and differences of human-environment interaction in the Stone Age (STA) (synergy with DC2). 

The comparison of these areas will cross-fertilize the regions’ respective knowledge and knowledge-gaps (different archaeological situations, topography, preservation conditions) to enhance our insights on HFG use of coastal areas in the STA. Across Europe, HFG settlement at the coast and HFG engagement with the marine surroundings has predominantly been explained from an economic perspective (e.g. fishing, sea mammal hunting). 

DC3 will investigate, from a novel perspective, other important aspects of these sites’ past social significance, including: 

• The sites’ social, economic and communicative meaning and function within a social network as can be reconstructed from the archaeological finds 
• Their placement in a – strategic – landscape of communication 
• Their physical accessibility in different seasons as well as access to other resources, (terrestrial animals, plants, raw material) 
• The potential cosmological aspects of human-environment interaction (synergy with DC4). 

The project combines various methods in a novel way:

• Analysis of coastal topography (geographic/geological maps and field observations) 
• Collection and analysis of archaeological evidence (on the basis of existing databases, literature and selected material studies) 
• Existing palaeo-environmental data (geology, archaeobotany, shoreline displacement models) 
• GIS modelling (including topographic analysis, view-shed analysis, least-cost-analysis, Tobler’s hiking function) 
• Comparison of archaeological results with ethnographic observations on recent HFGs. 

Expected results

With its innovative comparative, cross-regional approach, DC3 will re-evaluate the significance of coastal areas for past HFGs. The identification of specific knowledge as well as knowledge gaps from the different areas will be cross-fertilized, contributing significantly to a thicker and more reflected description and understanding of the economic, social and communicative meaning of STA coastal sites in their social networks. 

The perspective of site placement and meaning has high relevance for the present and future management, preservation and communication of the STA coastal legacy’s significance in today’s landscapes (synergies with DC 8-10). The project provides training for a career in research, in international, green cultural heritage management, regional development, European development.