A shell midden in Bohuslän

“Kitchen midden” (Danish køkkenmødding) was the term given to the piles of semi-fossilized shells left by humans first found around Limfjord in Denmark in the 19th century. In this project the researchers are focusing on middens as well-preserved archaeological archives – in which calcium carbonate in oyster and mussel shells helps to preserve even delicate fish bones. Their aim is to identify the factors behind the enduring fisher-hunter-gatherer settlements in Bohuslän, south-west Sweden, and their disappearance around 2,500 B.C.

Along with northern Denmark, Bohuslän, on the west coast of Sweden, is the European region with the greatest concentration of shell midden finds. Archaeological studies of shell middens in Bohuslän show how fisher-hunter-gatherers developed effective ways of using rich coastal food resources immediately after the Ice Age. This enabled them to create a stable and enduring presence in the area.

Four of the seven known middens in Bohuslän date back to the later Stone Age, or Neolithic period. They belong to the “Pitted Ware Culture”. This is the name given by archaeologists to traces of the last prehistoric fisher-hunter-gatherer societies in southern Scandinavia. These middens reflect prehistoric developments in which fisher-hunter-gatherers reestablished a foothold in large stretches of the southern Scandinavian coast and large islands.

We know from archaeological discoveries that they lived close to – and interacted with – Neolithic farmers. Between c. 3300 and 2500 B.C. the fisher-hunter-gatherers created a seemingly sustainable means of supporting themselves around marine and riverine environments. We know they contributed – together with early agrarian societies – to broader developments in the way Neolithic societies supported themselves, traveled, created and maintained contact between distant groups.

These Pitted Ware Culture fisher-hunter-gatherer societies also contributed to the a wider human impact on the ecology of their surroundings. Agriculture and animal husbandry enable humans to produce and store large quantities of food on relatively small areas of land. The production system itself creates scope for expansion. Yet, these fisher-hunter- gatherers endured. They retained and lived in territories in many parts of southern Scandinavia – not least in Bohuslän – for nearly a thousand years.

The Pitted Ware Culture is of especial scientific interest because it is important to understand why the fisher-hunter-gatherer societies who left behind shell middens and other archaeological traces were able to thrive – socially as well as economically and ecologically – as agrarian societies expanded into Scandinavia some 6,000 years ago. What were the factors allowing fisher-hunter-gatherers to resist agrarian expansion, and what was their impact on the development of fishing, hunting/trapping and maritime activities of later groups?

The project team plans to carry out a new dig at the only known Pitted Ware Culture shell midden that has not been destroyed or largely removed during earlier excavations and land use in the 20th century. The Sandhem site in Skee parish, northern Bohuslän, was discovered and documented in 2002 and 2003. Two piles of oyster shells were found. A test excavation revealed that they contain plentiful bone material, charcoal, flint artifacts and pottery. Carbon-14 dating confirmed the age of the finds as characteristically Middle Neolithic. The planned excavation and analysis of new field observations, soil samples and artefacts from Sandhem will shed new light on the fisher-hunter-gatherers who left behind the Pitted Ware Culture. It will also illuminate the world they lived in and created between the land and sea, their meetings with Neolithic farmers, and the natural and cultural processes causing changes in their surroundings.