Oslo Fjord’s Stone Age Settlements

OSLO, NORWAY—Science Nordic reports that archaeologists Steinar Solheim and Per Perrson of the University of Oslo have studied more than 500 radiocarbon dates taken from charcoal found in more than 150 Stone Age settlements around Oslo Fjord to create a model of the region’s population between 8000 and 2000 B.C., as the climate changed after the last Ice Age. “It was probably a bit warmer than it is today,” Solheim said. “We see a lot of hazel, alder, elm, and later oak, all of which are tree species that prefer warmer environments.” The model suggests the population was stable over time, even through a period marked by an extreme drop in global temperatures that began around 6000 B.C. and lasted for several centuries. The study also suggests people may have been more mobile at the beginning of the period than they were at the end of the Stone Age. “Eventually, you get a network of settlements, where some places are more specialized for hunting or fishing or for other resource use,” Solheim explained. To read more about archaeology in Norway, go to “Letter From Norway: The Big Melt.”