Mesolittisk kronologi i Sørøst-Norge – et forslag til justering

Abstract

A reassessment of the Mesolithic chronology in SoutheastNorway In 1975, Egil Mikkelsen proposed a Stone Age chronology for southeastern Norway based on a small number of excavated sites. According to him, the Mesolithic could be divided intofour phases. Albeit with slight adjustments Mikkelsen’sscheme has more or less been confirmed by later excavations. The chronology for Southeast Norway is thus reasonably well defined. Nevertheless, several transition periods have not been convincingly dated, especially the one between the Late Mesolithic Nøstvet and Kjeøy phases (BC 6350–4650 and BC 4650–3800, respectively), and, to a certain extent, the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition (BC3800). The established chronology was largely based on sites locatedeast of the Oslofjord. However, recent excavated and well-dated sites west of the Oslofjord, in the counties of Vestfold and Telemark, have provided new data to reassess the established chronology andtransition periods. In this paper C14 date-results, technological patterns and selected artefacts from these sites are presented and discussed. These indicate a chronological pattern different from the established scheme. The suggested outline for the Mesolithic in Southeast Norway is as follows: the microlith phase/BC 8200–7000; the pecked adze phase/BC 7000–5600; the Nøstvet adze phase/BC 5600–4500, and finally the transverse arrowhead phase/BC 4500–3900. Hence, it is also argued that the end of the Late Mesolithic should be dated to BC 3900, that is, in line with the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in southern Sweden and Denmark.