Reconstructing and modelling the Stone Age landscape in Southeastern Norway
Gjermund Steinskog
Abstract During 2000-2015 the Museum of Cultural History carried out several large-scale excavation projects, instigated by major infrastructure projects. Combined, these projects have excavated c. 100 Stone Age sites. Of importance are also surveyed, but unexcavated sites which are registered in Askeladden, the Directorate for Cultural Heritage´s national database of archaeological sites.
The region of Southeastern Norway is one of the few places in the world that has experienced continual coastal uplift since the end of the last Ice Age. Today, the Stone Age sites are situated at different heights within the landscape, from 20 to 150 meters above the present sea level. The sites are commonly located in remote hilly and woody inland areas, but when the sites were in use, they were situated close to the contemporary shoreline, in a landscape composed of large fjords and islands.
When working with Stone Age archaeology in Southeastern Norway, it is necessary to have tools for interpretation and reconstruction of the prehistoric coastal landscape, both on a local and regional scale. As such, GIS-based landscape models are essential tools for archaeological interpretations of these sites. This presentation will focus on how to use the different types of elevation data available from the Norwegian Mapping Authority, how to make palaeo-maps and different GIS-based models of the Stone Age coastal landscape, and finally demonstrate how this is integrated into the archaeologists work with the sites.
