1 What’s New in the Neolithic?
Neolithic conference
May 13-14
Organized by the Scanian Neolithic Group
Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University
at Kulturen, Lund
ABSTRACTS
MAY 13
SESSION 1. New advances in Neolithic studies – variations and timescales
The times of their lives: Bayesian approaches to Neolithic chronologies
Alasdair Whittle, Cardiff School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Whittle@cardiff.ac.uk
Most people would agree, I submit, that the overall chronological framework of the European Neolithic is not
importantly wrong, and indeed is broadly correct. That claim still leaves many chronological problems of varying kinds,
and routinely within the framework created by typology, occasionally seriation, stratigraphy and association, informal
inspection of radiocarbon dates, and some cross-reference to dendrochronology, where available, there is an acceptance
of blocks of time in the order of a couple of centuries — or more. Of course, from time to time and place to place, more
precise estimates can be made, but these are, I also submit, the exception rather than the rule. Given that precise
estimates of timing and duration are crucial for the understanding of the character and tempo of change, how can this
situation be improved?
I report on an ERC-funded project (started in May 2012), which I am leading with Dr Alex Bayliss of English Heritage,
to address these questions through a series of case studies across Neolithic Europe, from Serbia and Romania, Malta
and south-west Spain, up to northern Scotland. These principally involve a Bayesian approach to the interpretation of
radiocarbon dates, using the southern British and Irish enclosure project (Whittle et al, Gathering Time, Oxbow Books,
2011) as proof of concept. Our aim is to build on the strengths of the European research tradition in chronology, to
refine date estimates for a series of phenomena across the sixth to third millennia cal BC, at both site (tells, settlements,
monuments, etc) and regional (cultural and environmental timescapes) scales.
I will illustrate the project so far with reference to research with a series of European research teams, including on the
sixth/fifth millennium tell of Vinča-Belo Brdo tell in Serbia (led by Professor Nenad Tasić), the earlier fifth millennium
Lengyel culture settlement and burial aggregation at Alsónyék in south-west Hungary (led by Professor Eszter Bánffy),
and the sixth/fifth millennium cultural sequence in the upper Rhine valley in Alsace (led by Dr Anthony Denaire).
The opportunities to get to the timescales of lifetimes, generations and even decades for the construction of Neolithic
narratives will be stressed.
New insights into early farming practice and diet from stable isotope analysis of crop assemblages
Amy Bogaard, School of Archaeology, Oxford, amy.bogaard@arch.ox.ac.uk
Archaeologists continue to debate the nature and dietary role of Neolithic farming, and the ways in which its form and
significance may have varied across Europe. Stable isotope analysis of charred cereal grain and pulse seed material can
2 shed new light on both the nature of farming practice and the dietary importance of crops. Measurement of δ13C and
δ15N values in well preserved crop remains provides complementary perspectives on growing conditions, with
implications for water status and manuring, respectively. Particularly when measured across many bulk samples, and
informed by ecological analysis of weed assemblages associated with crop material, stable isotope analysis of crop
remains offers a direct means of assessing key dimensions of agricultural intensity. In terms of the dietary role of
farmed produce, δ13C and δ15N values of plant remains can provide much needed constraints on the estimation of
human palaeodiet, normally inferred only from offsets between human and faunal collagen values. While the impact of
manuring on crop δ15N opens up potential problems of equifinality in the estimation of dietary protein inputs from
animals versus plants, stable isotope analysis of crop and other plant remains associated with faunal and human
assemblages are needed to exclude or factor in such effects, thereby refining palaeodietary interpretation. In this talk I
present a series of case studies, including sites in south-eastern, central and northern Europe, to explore and illustrate
the potential and limitations of crop stable isotope analysis as a source of evidence for early farming practice and diet.
Boom and Bust in Europe´s Early Farming Population
Kevan Edinborough, S. Shennan, A. Timpsonon, S. Downey, M. Thomas, University College London,
k.edinborough@ucl.ac.uk
We present summed calibrated radiocarbon date distributions from a number of regions across the western half of
Europe as a demographic proxy (6,000-2,000 CalBC). We develop a new set of statistical tools that allow for the
identification of significant features in summed calibrated date distributions, as well as correlations with other temporal
processes, whilst dealing with concerns regarding sample sizes and sampling error, taphonomic losses, long term
population trends, multiple samples from sites, and potentially unjustified features in the calibration curve. Our results
indicate that West European populations grew rapidly in many regions with the onset of farming, but that these growth
rates were not sustained. The new subsistence system, despite its potential for supporting increased populations in any
suitable area, did not bring long-term stability. The characteristic regional pattern indicated by changing population
densities is one of instability; of boom and bust. We demonstrate the existence and quantify the scale of these
instabilities and discuss the possibility that they have endogenous or exogenous causes.
Sources for stones: where did Stonehenge come from?
Mike Parker Pearson, University College London, m.parker-pearson@ucl.ac.uk
In the last three years two projects have researched the provisioning of Stonehenge, as part of a new initiative to explain
why Stonehenge was built. The first of these – Feeding Stonehenge – examines the resourcing of Stonehenge’s Stage 2
(around 2500 BC when the sarsen trilithons and circle were erected). This includes analysis of isotopes in tooth enamel
of cattle and pigs from Durrington Walls to establish the catchment for animals and, by association, people coming to
take part in events at Stonehenge. The results of strontium isotope analysis, in particular, have demonstrated that only a
small percentage of cattle slaughtered at the settlement of Durrington Walls were reared on the surrounding chalklands.
Others came from very different geological zones within Britain, some probably from as far away as Highland Scotland.
The island-wide origins of these animals demonstrate that Stonehenge was resourced not simply according to the
shortest and most efficient concentration of resources but as a long-distance network incorporating communities from
across the whole of Britain.
The second project – the Stones of Stonehenge – explores the sources of the Wiltshire sarsens and Welsh bluestones, to
establish why these stones were brought to Stonehenge. In particular, the reason for bringing Welsh bluestones some
200km from west Wales is explored against the Neolithic background of settlement and monumentality in that region.
Recent investigations include the identification of a Stonehenge monolith quarry at Craig Rhosyfelin with evidence for
fire-setting to extract monoliths from the rock outcrop. The possibility that this and other Stonehenge quarries in west
Wales were associated with a major henge complex in that area is also investigated. This raises the possibility that
Stonehenge’s incorporation of stones from two very different parts of Neolithic Britain signified the symbolic merging
of ancestries for two previously divided regions of western and eastern Britain.
3 Our Trouble with Change
Åsa M. Larsson, Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, asa.larsson@sau.se
The study of prehistory is mainly governed by two major modes of explanation: change or continuity. Yet archaeology
has yet to come to terms with what guides either, in fact we have not even come to grips with what in the material at
hand constitutes significant change or not. Where should we even focus our gaze: on large scale phenomena like
settlement patterns or small scale events like pottery styles? In Neolithic research, trapped between a complex and
abundant material on the one hand, and the complete lack of direct historical evidence on the other, this weakness is a
major problem. As the natural sciences are producing a rapid stream of new information, archaeologists are scrambling
to put these into context. Do we even need ‘old style’ archaeology now that genes and isotopes present us with
unassailable facts? I firmly believe the natural sciences offer us invaluable new clues into the past. However, both social
science and the humanities are needed to put it into context. I will also make the case that sometimes it is the smaller
less ‘glamorous’ laboratory analyses that may shed the most important light on the processes behind change in the
Neolithic.
SESSION 2. Neolithic identities in prehistory and archaeology
The old in the new, the foreign in the indigenized. The Early Neolithic in Central and Northern Scandinavia
Fredrik Hallgren, Stiftelsen Kulturmiljövård, Uppsala, fredda.hallgren@gmail.com
The beginning of the Early Neolithic at c. 4000 cal. BC saw several more or less abrupt changes in Central Scandinavia,
with new subsistence economies (cultivation, cattle hearding, milk production), modified settlement patterns, new
technologies (pottery craft) and new types of stone tools that reflected pan-regional designs (eg. polygonal battle-axes).
However, one can argue that there are also elements of continuity in the adoption of these new elements. While the
polygonal battle-axes do display similarities to continental types, they also show traits of continuity with mesolithic
pick-axes of stone and antler. Similarily, the four-sided polished working axes arguably have local precursors in
polished four-sided Mesolithic axes. Agricultural practices were indeed a novelty, but they did not replace hunting,
fishing and gathering – rather they complemented the existing subsistence practices.
Agriculture and the associated material culture have a distinct northern limit along a line that stretches from the lower
courses of the Dalälven river in Central Sweden to Stadt on the Norwegian West Coast. To the north of this zone there
lived hunter-gatherers who did not adopt agricultural practices nor the craft traditions of their neighbours to the south,
but rather reproduced and created traditions of their own. While striking in its contrast between (part time) farmers in
the South and hunter-gatherers in the North, this boundary zone was not a new phenomena. Rather it mirrors the
situation during the Late Mesolithic, when a similar border between regions with different material culture can be
observed along the same North-South divide.
It is suggested that this already existing zone of cultural discontinuity to a degree determined the extent of the spread of
new cultural practices at the onset of the Early Neolithic. This should not imply a lack of contact, as shown by the long
distance circulation of exotic objects originating North respectively South of the cultural boundary zone.
The Oxiegroup and the earliest Neolithic
Mats Larsson, Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper, Kalmar, mats.larsson@lnu.se
This paper is about the neolithisation in Southern Scandinavia and especially southern Sweden. The background in the
late Mesolithic Ertebølle culture is discussed; including import items, cemeteries and settlement pattern. The Early
4 Neolithic in Scania is then discussed in some length, with issues like chronology and settlement pattern. Focus is on the
oldest part of the Early Neolithic with groups like Oxie, Svenstorp and Mossby are important. How shall we today
perceive these groups with their distinctive pottery styles? In using term like creolisation and practice theory it is
possible to discuss the events leading to these groups in a more fruitful way. In a way the whole transition could be seen
as a “mixture of mixtures” leading to an active engagement with the world and a change in material culture. One of the
main issued is the lack of marked change in settlement pattern. It has often been proposed that the inland was a more or
less unknown entity, but this was not the case. The building of a house, or a monument, involves an important change,
which significantly alters people’s roles in the landscape and their view of it. Places could in this way be seen as unique
and socially constructed.
Many of the earliest Funnel Beaker sites like Oxie, Svenstorp, Värby and Månasken are made up of different types of
pits and almost nothing else. Large amounts of flints debris are found in the pits, but also obviously unused implements
like flake axes, flake scrapers and in some cases even complete axes and vessels. Since the 1980´s though a mass of
new Early Neolithic material has been uncovered. One of the most important discoveries has been the long houses.
After 1986, when the first one was excavated at Mossby in southernmost Scania several similar houses have been
identified in both Denmark and Sweden.
From ritual interpretation to social construction: FBC societies in the Western Baltic
Johannes Müller, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Kiel, johannes.mueller@ufg.uni-kiel.de
The construction of social space during different FBC phases indicates alterations of the social organization within FBC
communities. Both changes in depositional customs and burial rites as well as modifications in material culture
pronounce new arrangements of social fragmentation within the society. While economic data suggest the requirement
of communal activities, new individual roles point to a breaking up of lineages. A altering reception of social ties ends
up with new demarcations of social space in the society, and in the landscape.
At the heart of it all: Michelsberg in the northern Upper Rhine and Middle Rhine regions
Detlef Gronenborn, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, gronenborn@rgzm.de
The Upper and Middle Rhine regions appear to have constituted areas of central importance for the Michelsberg Culture
(4300 – 3600 cal BC). While the presumed region of origin lays more to the west, between the Paris Basin, the
Ardennes and possibly the western Rhineland the largest sites were built with Urmitz in the Neuwied Basin, Schierstein,
Kapellenberg, and Glauberg in the Rhine-Main region and the Wetterau. These sites may have been at the top of a
ranked settlement system spanning between such “Mega-sites” with possibly thousands of inhabitants and small
hamlets of just a few houses and maybe not more than 20 people.
These regions also lay at cross-roads of far-reaching economic networks along which jade axes, flint and salt might
have been exchanged. Yet Michelsberg domestic architecture appears to have been rather ephemeral and erosion has led
to considerable destruction so very little is known about the day-to-day life and economic basis of the population. This
is all the more dissatisfying as during Michelsberg farming spread to the Alpine foreland and beyond into the Alps as
well as into the European north and the British Isles. Thus this period is one of major importance for European past
socio-political and economic dynamics.
From the late TRB to the earliest Bronze Age – an East Danish perspective
Rune Iversen, SAXO-Instituttet, København, runeiversen@hum.ku.dk
The third millennium BC in South Scandinavia is a period of great material heterogeneity, which has led to the
definition of a series of archaeological cultures such as: the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB), the Pitted Ware culture, the
Single Grave culture, the Battle Axe culture, the Bell Beaker culture and Late Neolithic culture.
Most of the research done on the third millennium BC has used one of these cultures as a starting point for further
interpretation of the Middle or Late Neolithic. I do not consider this method as mistaken but it becomes inadequate if
5 one is dealing with a geographical area with great cultural interaction and/or without clearly recognisable cultural units
as is the case with eastern Denmark. Furthermore, the term ‘culture’ is problematic as it tends to create an implicit
understanding of strict boarders dividing groups of prehistoric people. In my opinion, such an approach restricts new
insight into the dynamics and complexity of prehistoric societies.
Instead, this paper offers a revised understanding of the cultural development of the third millennium BC in eastern
Denmark by obtaining a long term perspective. By analysing the entire third millennium BC it is possible to go beyond
the various cultural groups and obtain a coherent perspective on the period in question. In this way, this paper explains
the third millennium BC as a steady process of transformation in which the old TRB society was gradually altered and
remodelled by incorporating various material elements such as new arrowheads, beakers and battle axes and later on
daggers and metal objects. Thereby, the way was prepared for the emerging of new social elites, characterising the
emerging Bronze Age that sat in at the turn of the second millennium BC.
Inferring Europe’s population history from genetic and archaeological data
Adam Powell & Joachim Burger, Palaeogenetics Group, Institute of Anthropology, Mainz, powella@uni-mainz.de
Coalescent-based population genetic computer simulations of genetic data from ancient human remains have shown that
the early Neolithic farmers of central Europe could not have been descended solely from the later hunter-gatherers. As
hunter-gatherers had already been settled in Central Europe since the retreat of the glaciers 20 kya, Neolithic farmers
must have migrated into this area. Based on further ancient DNA evidence we will show that modern populations in
many parts of Europe were formed by varying degrees of admixture between incoming farmers and indigenous huntergatherers. Multilocus studies using next generation sequencing technology (NGS) are now beginning to provide more
evidence on this question. We will further explain how the analysis of the appropriate genomic markers can improve the
inference of past demographies. We will also highlight the importance of spatially explicit population genetic modelling
approaches and show their potential for the inference of genetic and cultural history.
MAY 14
SESSION 1. Neolithic practices and social complexity
Early monumentality and social differentiation
Martin Hintz, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Kiel, mail@martinhinz.info
The Neolithic is often seen as a phase with a particular, but relatively uniform, mode of production. New studies such as
those undertaken in the priority program SPP 1400 "Early Monumentality and Social Differentiation" show, however,
that an intense dynamic is visible within the Neolithic; especially within the Funnel Beaker-North group and the
subsequent Single Grave phase. The comparison with other Neolithic cultures (such as LBK) additionally shows that
the idea of a uniform neolithic mode of production is not sustainable. Through interdisciplinary cooperation and an
increase in chronological resolution a much more detailed picture can now be drawn.
Palynological studies, based on a multisite approach on the Baltic coast of Germany, provide the first evidence for
woodland disturbances perhaps as early as the late Mesolithic (c. 4600 cal BC). Small-scale cereal cultivation in
connection with fire clearing is assumed from c. 4100 cal BC onwards. A distinct expansion of farming activities can be
seen around 3750 cal BC, probably in connection with the introduction of the ard. Woodland regeneration is observable
from c. 3350 cal BC; probably caused by a climatic deterioration that is also visible in sedimentological investigations
of lake sediments. During the Single Grave phase, more diverse land use is deducible.
By comparing this palaeoenvironmental evidence with the archaeological record and other sources of information, the
nature and scale of the changes and their impact on human societies can be explored. The combination of indicators of
human activities and impact from pollen data with those from the quantification of 14C dates and other archaeological
material provides insights into the demographic processes linked with the contemporary economic changes. For the
aforementioned woodland regeneration around 3350 cal BC, the 14C dates from settlements of the TRB North Group, as
well as other Europe-wide proxies, also attest to changes in human activities.
6 The Neolithic house as the production, consumption and display unit
Arkadiusz Marciniak, Instytut Prahistorii, Poznan, arekmar@amu.edu.pl
The house has commonly played a key role in grand narratives of the Neolithic. They stressed its leading role in the
production of society and the spread the Neolithic mode of life. The very fabric of existence in the house, however, has
hardly been scrutinizing and was either treated as obvious and self-explanatory or left aside as uninteresting.
Recent achievements in the in-depth understanding of social arrangements of the Neolithic communities, along with
significant developments of archaeological methodologies, made it possible to grasp the character of the production,
consumption and display in the Neolithic house through time from the hitherto unexplored perspective. They also
enabled to challenge the implicit assertions of the inevitable co-occurrence of these domains.
An increasingly growing body of evidence supports the communal character of the early Neolithic farmers and
challenge the hitherto predominant kin-based interpretations. The more individualized, probably kin-based
arrangements, only occurred much later. The paper aims to investigate how the communality of the early Neolithic
farmers arranged the production and consumption strategies. It particular, it will scrutinize the relationships between coresidence and economic pooling. It will further explore why the early Neolithic houses with a dominant position, in
terms of social and ritual significance, did not convert it into the control of production, storage, exchange or display.
The paper will further discuss the ways in which the emergence of household triggered more individualized housebased mode of production, consumption, storage and display.
The paper aims to reflect on these arrangements in a comparative perspective as the transformations of the Neolithic
communities across much of the Near East and Europe reveals striking similarities. These similar pathways need to be
explored as they indicate some kind of internal, yet not thoroughly identified and understood, logic in the development
of the Neolithic.
Rethinking the structure in deposition: 'mundane' and 'ritual' practice in Neolithic Britain
Duncan Garrow, School of archaeology, classics and egyptology, Liverpool, Duncan.Garrow@liverpool.ac.uk
The Neolithic is very much defined as a period when new practices were introduced. Some of those which constituted
the original ‘Neolithic package’ – the farming of crops and animals, the techniques of polishing stone tools and making
pottery – have proved to be persistent in their association with the beginning of the period. In recent years however, in
Britain at least, certain aspects of the original ‘package’ (such as the establishment of permanent settlement) have been
questioned, whilst others still (the construction of monumental architecture, a changed attitude to the ‘natural’ world)
have been added. This paper investigates the extent to which the activity of intentionally depositing objects in the
ground should also included in any new-look ‘Neolithic package’. In order to do so, after presenting an overview of the
kinds of deposition we see in Britain during the Neolithic, it asks how and whether we should distinguish ‘ritual’ or
‘structured’ deposits from other more ‘mundane’ acts of rubbish deposition.
Monumental long barrow cemeteries in Neolithic Europe: new light on the supra-cultural phenomenon
Magdalena S. Midgley, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Edinburgh, Magda.Midgley@ed.ac.uk
In the past decade the long barrow scholarship has undergone a substantial transformation. From the initial concerns, in
the second half of the 20th century, in the distribution, traditional taxonomy and chronology of these monuments,
research interests have moved towards very different agendas. Recent consideration of monumentality across vast areas
of north-western Europe – be it within the context of long barrows or megalithic monuments – has created a climate in
which aspects of social identity of the long barrow builders have assumed a much more important role.
Significantly, we are beginning to recognise that, throughout the vast distribution area of monumental long barrow
cemeteries, age and sex are not the principal discriminating factors, with men, women and children of various ages
represented both in long barrows and in contemporary, non-monumental cemeteries. Indeed, children’s burials are more
7 common than previously assumed albeit their status remains ambiguous. My contribution will explore some of the
recent advances in understanding the social complexities among the Neolithic communities, as expressed in different
choices of burial practices.
Monumentalizing the dead in the Late Neolithic
Gordon Noble, School of Geosciences, Aberdeen, g.noble@abdn.ac.uk
This talk will reflect on one of the largest research excavations ever conducted on a Neolithic lowland landscape in
Scotland. At Forteviot and now Leadketty in Lower Strathearn, Central Scotland, excavations in 2007-12 have revealed
an extensive focus of Late Neolithic monumentality and burial including two giant Late Neolithic palisaded enclosures,
an extensive Late Neolithic cemetery and a range of associated henges, timber structures and burials dating to the period
3000-2000 cal BC. The catalysis for the creation of this extensive monument complex on a landscape scale may have
been the creation of the cremation cemetery at Forteviot where a minimum of 18 individuals were placed in the ground
accompanied by skewer pins and a handful of other grave goods in the early centuries of the 3rd millennium BC. In the
centuries following the establishment of the cremation cemetery at Forteviot, a series of wooden monuments were built
encircling the cemetery and eposides of monument creation and burial continued into the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze
Age. Further upriver at Leadketty another giant palisaded enclosure, seemingly with different associations and uses,
was also constructed. At Forteviot we can perhaps identify the construction of a series of timber monuments as ways in
which subsequent generations of late Neolithic communities controlled access to an important ancestral shrine and
burial ground. The monuments at Leadketty make it clear that monumentality drew in a wide population and that all of
these monuments represent a series of interlinked foci connected by the River Earn. The paper will reflect on the social
organizations that may have been responsible for this and the significance of one of the greatest monument complexes
ever constructed in Late Neolithic Scotland.
SESSION 2. TRB sites, burials and landscapes – interpretations and perspectives
The development of the Flintbek region in the Neolithic
Doris Mischka, Institut
Doris.Mischka@fau.de
für
Ur-
und
Frühgeschichte,
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg,
The paper deals with the diachronic development of the neolithic burial sites of Flintbek, northern Germany. The
neolithic occupation starts before 4000 cal BC and until about 3650 cal BC mainly settlement finds survived. In the
later early Neolithic, Dolmen and Long Barrows in particular with and without megaliths were constructed and
subsequently changed and reused. Among them the most famous Long Barrow of Flintbek LA 3 with plough marks and
cart tracks belonging to the earliest evidence for this new technologies in the Funnel Beaker horizon. In the middle
Neolithic the passage graves dominate the scene. Later on, Single grave burials are deposited in small burial mounds or
as secondary burials in the older megalithic monuments. In the presentation it is tried to describe the development of the
Neolithic societies of the Flintbek region by studying the main characteristics through time.
The diversity of settings: aspects of historicity and innovation in different megalithic micro-landscapes
Almut Schülke, Department of archaeology, conservation and history, Oslo, almut.schuelke@iakh.uio.no
My contribution deals with the diversity of spatial settings as reflected in Neolithic megalithic landscapes. A closer
analysis of the region Northwest-Zealand, Denmark, constitutes the starting point for this analysis. In this region,
relatively close to each other, assemblages of different types of megalithic monuments are recorded within different
micro-regions. Thus quite different spatial patterns can be observed in neighbouring areas. Even though source critical
aspects have to be taken into account, the richness of the data in the study area marks certain tendencies.
8 Some of the clusters of monuments obviously mark historical sequences from EN II to MNAI/II with both different
types of dolmen chambers and passage graves, while others seem almost exclusively to be formed by monuments of one
type. Also, different marking of space can be observed, like e.g. hamlet-like clusters of monuments, lines of monuments
following communication lines and monuments marking important strategic points like cross-over-points. This spatial
diversity witnesses, for both the ENII and MNAI/II, of different modes of using space, in some cases seeking direct
affiliation to older monuments, in others “colonizing” “new” areas. Apart from this, the monuments are sometimes
located closer, sometimes further afar to contemporary settlements. It will be discussed how this diversity of settings
could be interpreted both in terms of the development of the TRB-society and in terms of how death ritual as performed
through, in and at the monuments was integrated differently into social space.
News from Frälsegården. Aspects on Neolithic burial practices in a recently excavated passage grave
Karl-Göran Sjögren, Institutionen för historiska studier, Göteborg, karl-goran.sjogren@archaeology.gu.se
In 1999-2001, the remains of an overploughed passage grave at Gökhem Frälsegården in Falbygden were excavated.
Below the plough soil, a bone layer containing ca 9800 bone fragments was investigated and documented in detail.
Since then, a number of analyses have been performed on these bones, such as osteological and spatial analyses of the
human bones, refitting and pairing of bones, analyses of strontium and other isotopes, aDNA, and thin sectioning of
bones.
In this talk, I will try to summarize this work and discuss how the evidence from Frälsegården may be interpreted in
terms of mortuary practices in megalithic tombs.
Frydenlund – early Neolithic settlement and “long barrows” in the Sarup Area
Niels H. Andersen, Moesgaard Museum, Aarhus, niels.andersen@hum.au.dk
Since 2009 Moesgaard Museum has, as a part of the Sarupproject, at Frydenlund 2 km east of Sarup uncovered an Early
Neolithic settlement covered by two ”long barrows”. By the excavation of the settlement about 12.000 finds have been
found. The materials are of late TN 1-type, like Siggeneben-Süd/Stengade house II. Fours C14-datings - on grain – give
us a result about 3550 BC. The finds came from a group of pits and a thin cultural layer. One, perhaps two, houses of
Mossby-type was placed parallel to each other and later framed and perhaps covered by constructions to “long
barrows”. Very impressive facade-trenches were built in the western part of the long barrows. An earth grave with good
finds has been placed between two former postholes in one of the houses.
The Hamremoen enclosure in Kristiansand, southern Norway
Håkon Glørstad & Lars Sundström, Kulturhistorisk museum, Oslo, hakon.glorstad@khm.uio.no
In 2010 and 2011 the museum of Cultural History excavated a Stone Age site interpreted as an enclosure from the Early
Neolithic in Kristiansand, Southern Norway. Finds from the TRB culture are rare in this part of the country. The
enclosure, however, share a lot of similarities to similar constructions in classical TRB-areas. In this paper, the site and
its formation history is presented. The social context of the site will be discussed. The authors think that the
Hamremoen site can reveal some significant qualities of the Early Neolithic TRB society. The location outside the
typical agrarian areas of Scandinavia reveal the flexibility and viability in TRB society.