Anders Nummedal: fra ”quasi-lærd” til steinaldernerd

Abstract

Anders Nummedal - from street smart to Stone Age nerd. Anders Nummedal was an outstanding scholar of the Norwegian Stone Age. While walking along old shorelines in 1909, he made the first of many discoveries that sparked a fierce debate over the date of the first human settlement in Norway. Given that Stone Age people were known to have lived close to the sea, Nummedal realised that it should be possible to date sites using his knowledge of the changes in sea level. As a result, he concluded that many of the sites he had discovered could be dated back to the Mesolithic period. Coming as it did from a “mere” schoolmaster, his theory was ridiculed by most academic archaeologists, who had assumed that these sites could not have been occupied earlier than the Neolithic period. In this article, the authors focus on the problems Nummedal encountered when presenting his sensational theories. The sources include correspondence between Nummedal and Karl Rygh of Videnskabsselskabets Oldsaksamling in Trondheim, and the newspaper discussions that followed the presentation of Nummedal’s theory. The authors examine the reasons for the academics’ reluctance to accept Nummedal’s theory, and for Nummedal’s refusal to budge from his position. The various types of written evidence are well-suited to shed light on different sides of the discussion.