Over the last 20 years a vast number of new and important Swedish Mesolithic sites have been excavated and published in different ways as articles, books and site reports. As yet there has been no study that tries to bring the loose ends together and so the main task of this important new work by one of Sweden’s leading prehistorians is to provide an extensive overview of some of the main sites and results. The timespan is long: c. 10 000-4000 BC and the amount and choice of data very large so rather than attempt to describe everything in detail Mats Larsson focuses on a series of fundamental research perspectives concerning Mesolithic lifeways and settlement patterns and chooses key sites to illustrate them. The emphasis is on southern and middle Sweden, though the country’s northern regions are in no way forgotten. This companion piece to the author’s recent successful volume Paths Towards a New World: Neolithic in Sweden, written for a general audience is also a must for all those archaeologists interested in the Mesolithic of Northern Europe and would be students of prehistory.
Preface
Introduction
1. The Mesolithic in Sweden: an introduction
Mesolithic on the move
2. Hunters in the Forest
Agerödmosse (bog)
Settlement patterns and hunting/collecting strategies
Life and death
The end of the Mesolithic in Scania
Segebro-an Early Atlantic Settlement at the coast
Ageröd V-An Atlantic bog site
Tågerup- Settlement and Burials
Yngsjö and Årup
The Last Hunters- The Ertebølle Culture
Soldattorpet, Limhamn
Löddesborg
Tågerup
Bredasten
Yngsjö
3. BLEKINGE: NEW DISCOVERIES
Bro 597
Damm 6
Norrje Sunnansund: Tons of fish
4. HUNTERS ALONG THE KALMAR STRAIT AND ON ÖLAND
Tingby, a much discussed house
New excavations at Tingby
Concluding remarks
Öland
5. SEALHUNTERS ON GOTLAND
Taking care of the dead
6. INTO THE FOREST: EARLY HUNTERS IN THE SOUTH SWEDISH INLAND
7. PIONEERS: HUNTERS IN EASTERN MIDDLE SWEDEN
Östergötland. New discoveries
The Mjölby sites
Mörby
Sand covered houses
Högby
Storlyckan: Another site with a dwelling structure
The hut
Spatial distribution
Western Östergötland, Lake Tåkern
Sites around Linköping
Life and death around Motala
Death in the Lake
The Late Mesolithic in Östergötland
Pioneering hunters: some remarks
8. PIONEERS IN THE EARLY ARCHIPELAGOS OF EASTERN MIDDLE SWEDEN
Early sites
Late sites
9. MOVING INLAND
10. THE WESTERN PART OF SWEDEN
The earliest sites
Hensbacka Culture
Inland sites
Sandarna Culture
The dead
The Late Mesolithic
Lihult
Lihult inland sites
Transverse arrowheads
11. MOVING NORTH
Leksand
Along the coast-further north
12. PIONEERS IN THE INTERIOR OF NORTHERN SWEDEN
The earliest sites
Later Mesolithic
Epilogue
References
"Distilling the scattered field notes and site reports of the entire Swedish Mesolithic (9700-4000 BC) into a slim volume is an impressive task never previously accomplished. Yet with his simple and salient writing style, Larsson – one of the country’s premier prehistorians – manages just that, employing a chronological and thematic approach to make sense of the diverse stone tools, bone-filled pits, and rogue post-holes peppered through Sweden's dense forests and Baltic shoals."
Current World Archaeology
(25/05/2017)
"Overall, this is a very interesting book which provides a very thorough overview of Mesolithic sites in Sweden, and especially highlighting a lot of the important new discoveries made within the last couple of decades… a really important source for students of the Mesolithic"
Nicky Milner
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
(03/11/2017)
