Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 5(4), pp. 332 - 342
DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.050407
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Mobility Memories and Space: Mesolithic Living Close to the Ancylus Lake in Eastern Middle Sweden, 8000 - 6000 cal BC

Tom Carlsson ^*
Foundation Cultural Heritage, Sweden

ABSTRACT

This paper has its focus on an area in eastern middle Sweden, 8000 – 6000 BC. It has the intention to presents several Mesolithic settlement sites situated within close to each other. Since several of the settlement sites includes remains of houses, preserved burnt animal bones and macrofossils the sites are fairly unique for the region. Radiocarbon dating illustrates that people stayed in the area and often used the very same places for more than 2000 years even though substantial changes in the composition of the landscape occurred. Despite an initial nearness to the ancient shores of the Baltic Sea, the Ancylus Lake, animal bones and macrofossils indicate an economical continuity of hunting and gathering in the woods. In Mesolithic research mobility is an axiom. Is the idea of mobility of small social groups between special purpose places in the inland and large coastal settlements still plausible, in the decade after 2010, as a general interpretative model? "Laboratory Archaeology": a DNA and a variation of Isotope analysis from different Mesolithic sites highlight a rather disparate picture for Mesolithic living in Europe. As any other truisms, mobility must constantly be discussed and reassessed. Unfortunately, because of bad preservation for organic material, apart from burnt and charcoal no further Isotope analysis where possible for the sites presented in the paper. But, even without any evidence from Isotopes analysis we must evaluate and consider other options than the standard model for mobility. In the paper I try to search for theoretical concept for place and landscape and I use Heidegger's concept of "dwelling" [19] to understand how Mesolithic man, in this area, established an economical/social relations to a set of places, locations, in the landscape. Places were more than a base for subsistence, increasingly appearing as 'places for the presence of the past, memories'. Peopled recreated that relationship by using places for every-day activities over and over again.

KEYWORDS
Mesolithic, Sweden, Environment, Settlements, Houses, Mobility, Sedentary, Memories

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Tom Carlsson , "Mobility Memories and Space: Mesolithic Living Close to the Ancylus Lake in Eastern Middle Sweden, 8000 - 6000 cal BC," Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 332 - 342, 2017. DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.050407.

(b). APA Format:
Tom Carlsson (2017). Mobility Memories and Space: Mesolithic Living Close to the Ancylus Lake in Eastern Middle Sweden, 8000 - 6000 cal BC. Sociology and Anthropology, 5(4), 332 - 342. DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.050407.