Vertical aspects of Stone Age distribution in Norwegian high mountains
Mieko Matsumoto
Abstract This paper will show how the vertical aspects of Stone Age distribution in Norwegian mountains can be visualized through the museum database. This database system developed used by the Norwegian university museums is by now used for cataloguing all new acquisitions. It also contains metadata for the older part s of the collections. These archaeological collections are available through the website www.unimus.no as open data. As of November 2015, around 900 000 entries can be queried and presented. The majority of finds are geotagged, and some of the finds are related to posts in the national sites and monuments register, Askeladden. All finds are annotated with different precision levels ranging from precise location over cadastral unit to municipality and county. Some types of analyses can only be done with objects with precise provenience information, while analyses concerning trends within a larger area can use finds with lower precision levels. These precision levels are therefore decisive when choosing objects for the different analyses. Our project Dynamic distributions was concentrated on the visualization of large stone artefacts like axes, sickles and daggers in South-East Norway. These finds are mainly from valleys and agricultural areas. The vertical aspect should include the high mountains, and then it is necessary to take other material types into consideration. One important aspect for the find distribution in the high mountains is the fluctuating tree limit. Soon after the end of the Ice Age, the tree limit was much higher than today. Many of the Stone Age sites that today are interpreted as high mountain sites have been below the tree line in a birch and pine forest. The paper will present different visualizations of artefact type and site distribution across the high mountain region.
