Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
People in the Lake Mälaren area were on to Neolithisation immediately, with agriculture and stock breeding and pottery and sedentary life, when the package became available around 4000 cal BC. But then they said "oh, screw it" and spent most of the the Middle Neolithic as seal hunters and fishers again. My Stone Age bros Roger Wikell and Mattias Pettersson have descended from their Mesolithic heights (post-glacial land uplift and shore displacement, remember) and are now looking at Middle Neolithic sites in locations that were quite extreme at the time -- way, way out in the Baltic. And you had to travel by canoe to get there. The above finds are from a new site M&P discovered on just north of the Gålö peninsula earlier today! 5000 years old, pottery-making seal hunters of the Pitted Ware culture, you saw them here first. And tomorrow I'm joining the guys out there for some digging.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
That's not workin'
That's the way to do it!
Diggin' for nothin' and shards for free!
Good on you - congratulations.
Posted by: J-Dog | September 2, 2009 5:54 PM
That is great! Elevation? Is the pottery poriferous or not? Comb stamp or drawn lines?
C'mon - I need more. Grab Roger by the ear and shake hin around a bit until something falls out.
Posted by: ArchAsa | September 3, 2009 3:39 AM
Archaeological oddities: is it possible, that in some
cave next to the bison paintings, there is a preserved
patch of clay that was mud 30,000 years ago when the
cave dwellers were commenting on how well they had burned
today's catch on the fire? That is, a preserved
linguisitc sound record from human prehistory?
Posted by: Alan | September 6, 2009 3:43 AM
A stationary mud splash wouldn't record sound. It has been suggested that pottery on a potter's wheel might record sound, but so far nobody's managed extract any recording.
Posted by: Martin R | September 6, 2009 8:14 AM