The inner parts of the Oslofjord contains some of the most exciting traces of Stone Age people in Europe

Sciencenorway.no ^ | Sunday, January 15, 2023 | Bard Amundsen

[SunkenCiv]

Archaeologists are now seeing how a landscape of fjords, straits and islands attracted people in the Stone Age. Few other places in Europe lend themselves as well to studying the lives and disappearances of the Stone Age people.

If you take the E6 motorway at Vinterbro, outside of Norway's capital Oslo, and head out towards the Nesoddtangen promontory, you will shortly afterwards pass the now quite unremarkable Havsjodalen.

Here, Stone Age settlements appear close together...

An improvement of the road to Nesodden municipality a few years ago opened up the possibility for the archaeologists to start digging in earnest...

In Stone Age Norway, people almost always lived near the water's edge, as they did in many other places in Europe.

People at that time commonly travelled a lot by boat.

They used the marine resources perhaps just as much as they hunted and gathered.

Archaeologists used to talk about people in the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) as 'hunter–gatherers'. Today they are often called 'hunter–fisher–gatherers'...

During the Ice Age, an enormous glacier had weighed down the entire Nordic region.

Since then, the landscape around the Oslofjord has risen at least 200 metres above sea level...

Because all the meltwater from the Ice Age caused the sea level to rise a lot, many of the Stone Age settlements in Europe have disappeared under water.

[SunkenCiv]

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Map showing the Oslofjord 10 500 years ago (left) and 9 500 years ago (right). On the map to the right, note the strait Havsjodalen (in the middle of the map), the Vinterbro strait through today's lake Gjersjoen and the fjord that enters lake Arungen in As. (Map from the study)

(Map from the study)

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This is what the landscape around the Oslofjord looked like 7 500 years ago (left) and then 6 000 years ago (right). Archaeologists find fewer and fewer traces of people here towards the end of the Stone Age. But the inner part of the Bunnefjord continues to be an attractive settlement area for some people.

(Map from the study)

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[Larry Lucido]

They are just pining for the fjords

[SunkenCiv]

• New Norwegian land could emerge from the Atlantic Ocean [January 16, 2023]
• Who painted pictures like this on rock walls in Norway 5000-8000 years ago? [June 16, 2022]

[Red Badger]

Have you driven a Fjord lately?.......................

[SunkenCiv]

No, but I’ve been pinin’ for them.

[Red Badger]

The artifacts must have been very, very good ones.

Because everybody knows, at Fjord Quality is JOB 1................

[Larry Lucido]

They wanted Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese but they were fresh out.

[PIF]

Because all the meltwater from the Ice Age caused the sea level to rise a lot,

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now there’s an understatement!

[Red Badger]

They had to settle for Venezuelan Beaver Cheese......................

[SunkenCiv]

Heh, y'think? "...and the Elephant Man had a little puffiness around the eyes."

[Larry Lucido]

They were all like "Not much of a cheese shop, is it?"

"Finest in the district!"

[17th Miss Regt]

Fjord. Does that stand for Fix, Junk, Or Repair Daily?

[GaltAdonis]

Norwegian Blue Parrot -