What has the sea taken from us? Cognitive possibilities of studying artefacts from newly-discovered submerged prehistoric sites in Puck Bay (Gulf of Gdańsk, Baltic Sea) (original) (raw)
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Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 92 - 2011, 2014
The article presents the results of the SINCOS research group and the SINCOS II project bundle concerning the changes of the socio-economic system of the communities and societies living on the shore of the southwestern Baltic rim from the mid-Holocene Mesolithic and Neolithic period to the Early Medieval Age. The main focus is laid on the stage of the Littorina Transgression from 6000 to 2000 cal. BC, when the people living in the maritime zone between the Oder estuary and the Oldenburg Rift were facing a continuous shore displacement and a coastal decline, forcing them to move their settlements successively to pretect them from inundation. Because of the regionally differing intensity of the isostatic rebound to the isostatic uplift of northern Scandinavia, the coasts of the Bay of Mecklenburg were affected by this phenomenon to a much larger scale than those of the Arkona Basin and the Pomeranian Bay. Both areas were separated by the Darss Sill, which acted as a threshold between them. To be able to compare the environmental developments and human strategies employed in these regions, both of them were chosen as research Areas and investigated with the same methods. In both research areas all available Information about settlement remains originally positioned on the shore and indicating the relative sea level at their particular period of utilisation – and which thus can be used as sea level index points – were systematically recorded in the SINCOS database and formed the foundation for further research. A systematic survey based on geophysical measurements led to the discovery of numerous submerges sites in both research areas. Some of them offer exceptionalconditions for the preservation of organic material, so that artefacts as well as tools and multifaceted settlement refuse in large quantities could be recovered during surveys and excavations. Field work was restricted to sites from the Late Mesolithic until late Neolithic period between 6000 and 2000 cal. BC, because their remains should reflect the human reaction to the Littorina Transgression in a particular manner. Especially for Wismar Bay – forming one of the most important regional nuclei of research in the Bay of Mecklenburg – a large number of well preserved coastal sites was located, surveyed, and in some cases partly excavated. The material from these sites forms not only the basis for a detailed reconstruction of the chronological development from the Late Mesolithic to the Early Neolithic and the Settlement history for the period from 6000 until 4000 cal. BC, but also for the reconstruction of the intrusion of marine waters into Wismar Bay during the Littorina Transgression. Animal remains in combination with sediment conditions such as transgression contacts provide evidence of the appearance of the transgressing Baltic Sea at some distance from the present Island of Poel at about 6000 cal. BC. Some centuries later, both the fish species community and the frequency of the recorded species prove that the Littorina Transgression had reached this area. In the eastern research area – well investigated especially for the shores of the Bodden waters on Rügen Island – less dramatic changes of the environment meant that specialised sites with favourable general conditions related to their topographic setting were not abandoned as fast as in the western area. In fact, these sites stayed in occupation for centuries, so consequently a chrono-stratigraphic division of the archaeological material is only possible in a limited way. Definitely from the middle of the 5th millennium cal. BC, east as well as west of the Darss Sill the exploitation of the Baltic Sea – the hunting of seals and coastal fishery – became the economic basis of the human communities, and an important feature of the late Terminal Mesolithic Ertebølle Culture. Apparently this stayed true for a period of time, although around 4000 cal. BC the first livestock has been established in the entire southwestern Baltic Sea area. Investigations of aDNA samples have proved that the first cattle had Near Eastern ancestors, so that they must have been imported and did not result from the local domestication of autochthonous specimens. The same must be true for the contemporaneous first sheep and goats, whose ancestors are in any case of Near Eastern origin. During the last 4,000 years shoreline displacement and transgression east of the Darss Sill only affected the coastal settlements to a low degree, even though the sea level also rose here moderately during the Middle Ages as a consequence of the Late Subatlantic Transgression. This contrasts with the Bay of Mecklenburg, where the isostatic rebound together with the Late Subatlantic Transgression led during the Middle Ages to shoreline displacements and considerable erosions of settled and waterfront areas. Within the SINCOS research unit and the SINCOS II project bundle, methods and standards on interdisciplinary research on maritime and submerged prehistoric landscapes and sites could be developed and established for the southwestern Baltic area that may be transferred to other coastal areas affected by sea level changes and shoreline displacement.
In the 7th and 6th millennia cal BC, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer populations of the North European Plain were confronted by massive changes in their environment, not only by the increasing reforestation of the landscape but also by the rapid and global sea-level rise. Th is process led to the fi nal fl ooding of the Baltic basin and to the origin of the present Baltic Sea. Th e investigation of the human response to this fundamental environmental change was the main task of the geoarchaeological work group of the interdisciplinary DFG Research Unit SINCOS from 2002 to 2005 and the DFG project cluster SINCOS-II from 2006 until 2009. Wismar Bay in western Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was one of the primary regions of investigation, and several Stone Age sites were located during the surveys. Research vessels used geo-scientifi c equipment, such as side-scan sonar, multibeam echo sounder, and remotely controlled underwater video camera, in 6.5-11 m deep water. Th e sites belong to diff erent phases of the Late Mesolithic and Terminal Mesolithic between 6800 and 5000 cal BC. Th e best-preserved sites were investigated by underwater archaeological excavation. Th is chapter provides an overview of the geological, archaeological, and archaeozoological results of the investigations.
In the 7th and 6th millennia cal BC, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer populations of the North European Plain were confronted by massive changes in their environment, not only by the increasing reforestation of the landscape but also by the rapid and global sea-level rise. This process led to the final flooding of the Baltic basin and to the origin of the present Baltic Sea. The investigation of the human response to this undamental environmental change was the main task of the geoarchaeological work group of the interdisciplinary DFG Research Unit SINCOS from 2002 to 2005 and the DFG project cluster SINCOS-II from 2006 until 2009. Wismar Bay in western Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was one of the primary regions of investigation, and several Stone Age sites were located during the surveys. Research vessels used geo-scientifi c equipment, such as side-scan sonar, multibeam echo sounder, and remotely controlled underwater video camera, in 6.5–11 m deep water. Th e sites belong to diff erent phases of the Late Mesolithic and Terminal Mesolithic between 6800 and 5000 cal BC. The best-preserved sites were investigated by underwater archaeological excavation. This chapter provides an overview of the geological, archaeological, and archaeozoological results of the investigations.
Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, 2009
The main task of the archaeological part of the SINCOS research team were investigations on Stone Age sites dated between 6500 and 3500cal BC in the two areas west and east of the Darss Sill, Wismar Bight in the West, and the island of Rügen in the East. In Wismar Bight, due to the more significant relative sea-level rise, excavations were only carried out on settlements submerged today. The archaeological work on Rügen and in the Strelasund was concentrated on wetland sites above modern sea level. In addition, underwater archaeological surveys were carried out in the coastal waters of Rügen, as well as along other sections of the Baltic coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. For the more recent periods from the Late Neolithic to the Late Middle Ages, all available data on modifications and changes in the coastline and sea level were extracted from the archives of the relevant heritage agencies of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein, and integrated into the SINCOS database. In both of the main areas investigated the results provide first evidence, especially for the period before 4000 cal BC, of differences in the regional sea-level rise, for the chronology of the transformation of freshwater into brackish-marine environments, and for the resulting adaptation of the economic systems of the local communities. However, further investigations are necessary prior to the publication of final results.
I n t r o d u c t i o n The question of the earliest settlement of a territory is one of the most important and principal ones in Stone Age archaeology. It is a kind of benchmark in relations between nature and humans. Stone Age archaeological sites, especially Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ones, are vary rare. They are of great value because of the unique information they give us about the earliest stages of the development of human society. For various historical reasons, there is less information about social and eco-nomic processes in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in the Kaliningrad region of Russia than about neighbour-ing areas of northern Poland and southwest Lithuania. The present state of our knowledge on the Palaeolithic in the Kaliningrad region is based on previously single finds that are not linked with any complex. Basically, it is casual finds of the tips of arrows, harpoons, and other products made from bone and horn which have been found during land reclamation work...
Archéologie des chasseurs-cueilleurs maritimes. De la fonction des habitats à l’organisation de l’espace littoral Archaeology of maritime hunter-gatherers. From settlement function to the organization of the coastal zone, 2016
Abstract: The coastal sites of the mid-Neolithic Pitted Ware culture on the island of Gotland are exceptionally rich in material remains. This is true since the limestone soils protect all sorts of bone remains extremely well. The sites are also generally over 100,000 m2 large in size. This fact turns them into complex sites full of information, in a sense comparable to the richness of the Late Mesolithic shell midden coastal sites. However, these sites include no oysters, but are on the other hand packed with bones from fish, seals, sea birds as well as pig bones. Parts of the sites are also assigned for human burials, buried under flat ground in clustered grave fields. To understand these complex sites that often include dates from a time span of several hundreds of years they need to be deconstructed with regard to the various activities both vertically and horizontally. The site cannot be seen as a unit, but should instead be seen as multiple sites with an entangled history. Only if seen as a history including several stories it will be possible to understand the use of these sites. Keywords: mid-Neolithic, Pitted Ware culture, island of Gotland, clustered graves, animal bones. Résumé : Les sites côtiers du Néolithique moyen de la culture de la Céramique à Fossettes (Pitted Ware) de l’île de Gotland sont exceptionnellement riches en artefacts. En témoignent les sols calcaires qui protègent extrêmement bien toute sorte de restes osseux. Les sites ont aussi généralement de plus de 100 000 m2 de surface. Ce constat fait de ces derniers des sites complexes à riche potentiel d’informations à livrer, d’une signification comparable à la richesse des amas coquilliers côtiers mésolithiques, bien que ces sites ne comprennent pas d’huîtres, mais sont d’autre part composés d’os de poissons, de phoques, d’oiseaux marins, ainsi que d’ossements de cochons. Certaines parties des sites sont également dédiées aux sépultures humaines, enterrées sous le sol dans des zones de tombes groupées. Pour comprendre ces sites complexes, qui possèdent souvent des durées d’occupation de plusieurs centaines d’années, il est nécessaire de déconstruire leurs différentes activités à la fois verticalement et horizontalement. Ce site ne devrait pas être considéré comme une unité, mais plutôt comme plusieurs sites distincts ayant des histoires entremêlées. C’est seulement à travers la conscience de cette multiplicité qu’une compréhension de ces sites peut avoir lieu. Mots-clés : Néolithique moyen, culture de la Céramique à Fossettes (Pitted Ware), île de Gotland, tombes groupées, ossements d’animaux.