The available literature on intelligence and agent activity shows that some secret organisations,... more The available literature on intelligence and agent activity shows that some secret organisations, specifically in city environments, employ elaborate strategies in terms of the placement of their agents and members in relation to one another. Often, they place members of their networks in small 'enclaves', but sometimes they also become a part of larger 'colonies', which makes protecting them easier. In some cases, this enables the historic detection of where members of these networks lived, and thus, it becomes possible to study them and the organisations they were a part of. This paper provides various examples and outlines the general context of this particular feature.
2015 IEEE/OES Acoustics in Underwater Geosciences Symposium (RIO Acoustics), 2015
The paper discusses the detection of shipwrecks embedded in sea-floor sediments using a Chirp sub... more The paper discusses the detection of shipwrecks embedded in sea-floor sediments using a Chirp sub-bottom profiler. From a methodological-historical perspective it examines four examples of recent chirp recordings of verified shipwrecks embedded in different types of sediment environments, in different geographical and geological areas and from different periods. The effects of shallow water depths, various sediment types, recording speed and different (2D and 3D) sub-bottom profiler systems are briefly discussed. It is concluded that Chirps are well suited for survey purposes, producing high quality 2D profiles of good resolution and satisfactory penetration depth. Furthermore, the equipment is easy to handle from a small boat and allows flexible sailing. This type of 2D data is cheaper and faster to acquire, easier to interpret and apparently also provides better resolution and detail than that from present 3D systems. Chirp data are therefore of great value in identifying and outlining shipwrecks hidden in the sea floor in survey situations where larger areas must be covered. The overall conclusion is that there are grounds for optimism with regard to the application of this method for detection of maritime archaeological targets.
Litteraturen om efterretning og agentvirksomhed viser at nogle hemmelige organisationer ofte spec... more Litteraturen om efterretning og agentvirksomhed viser at nogle hemmelige organisationer ofte specielt i bymæssige bebyggelser har gennemarbejdede strategier for lokalisering af deres agenter og medlemmer. Ofte bosætter de medlemmerne af deres netværk i små enklaver og til tider i større 'kolonier', der gør dem lettere at beskytte. Dette gør det lettere i eftertid at detektere, hvor medlemmer af sådanne netværk var bosat, og dermed at studere dem. Denne artikel giver nogle eksempler og opridser den generelle kontekst.
ABSTRACT Abstract — In the light of the increasing industrial activity in the oceans, management ... more ABSTRACT Abstract — In the light of the increasing industrial activity in the oceans, management of the submerged cultural heritage beyond the shallow zone is becoming a matter of increasing concern. National legislative bodies, together with the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, underline the need to develop a legal and methodological framework for management of the submerged cultural heritage. Besides ship wrecks, which are numerous, Stone Age settlements likely represent the dominant type of submerged cultural heritage sites requiring competent and costeffective management. As the average sea level during successive glaciations was, for long periods, more than 100 m below that of today, and as the subsequently submerged areas appear to have been more intensely inhabited than hitherto imagined, it seems logical to expect well-preserved remains of early human settlement to be associated with these highly productive prehistoric coastal areas. The archaeological finds recorded demonstrate that this settlement, even in Northern Europe, extends back as far as 1 million years. A pre-requisite for a successful implementation of future legislative initiatives is the development of a technical basis consisting of 1) cost-effective methodologies for mapping and investigating the submerged Stone Age sites and 2) cost-effective methods for investigating/excavating the deeper submerged Stone Age sites. This study addresses the latter point because it is seen as being important to facilitate an interactive development of legislation and the possibilities that technological advances in underwater acoustic sensing, positioning, robotics and mechatronics can provide. For example, it would presently be quite problematic to have to carry out an investigation of a well preserved mammoth-hunter site covered by 5 m of sediments and located at a depth of 70 m. How should one excavate such a site at a reasonable quality level? It is likely that we may have to deal with situations of this type in the near future. information can be obtained about such sites during a pre-excavation evaluation stage by physical characterization of cultural and surrounding layers and sediment/dirt DNA analysis, action of blocks of sediment for excavation under controlled conditions during an actual investigation.
HIDDEN DIMENSIONS. Aspects of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer landscape use and non-lithic technology., 2022
As much as ‘hunting’ is a central theme in archaeological hunter-gatherer research, as little do ... more As much as ‘hunting’ is a central theme in archaeological hunter-gatherer research, as little do we actually know about the specificities of hunting strategies and how this has influenced the cultural structuring of landscapes. It is often assumed that game was hunted anywhere, but the question is whether this was the case. Firstly, the archaeological picture of hunting practices and technology is biased by the overrepresentation of sites characterised by quantities of knapped lithics – the interpretation of sites with no or only little lithics is difficult, notably due to the fact that non-lithic materials are often not preserved. Secondly, there is an underestimation of the importance of non-lithic material culture directly or indirectly related to hunting and landscape exploitation. Thirdly, hunting can encompass various strategies, which are associated with different uses of materials and structures in different parts of the landscape. Choices that have been made will certainly have depended on the knowledge about animal behaviour and landscape structure, with an important role for rivers, lakes and seashores. Taking differences in geographical and environmental conditions, as well as variability in hunting strategies and technology into consideration, this paper attempts to identify some tendencies with regard to the hunting of key species of big game (reindeer/caribou; elk/moose; red deer; roe deer; wild boar) in Mesolithic/Late Stone Age landscapes in north-western Europe. The most important aspects of the behaviour of these species are discussed, notably seasonal variations with regard to group composition, occurrence in the landscape, and daily feeding and drinking patterns. Next, we discuss aspects of hunting, notably the establishment of the presence of game, the spotting and approaching prey, and the wounding and following of prey. This is followed by a brief look at the archaeological evidence for big game hunting and aspects of landscape structure in the Mesolithic of north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
HIDDEN DIMENSIONS. Aspects of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer landscape use and non-lithic technology, 2022
Whereas the ‘cultural groups’ of Stone Age hunter-gatherers in archaeology typically are distingu... more Whereas the ‘cultural groups’ of Stone Age hunter-gatherers in archaeology typically are distinguished and classified on the basis of the typology of knapped lithics – whereby lithics are assumed to reflect these people’s territorial configurations as well as their cultural interactions – the reality becomes considerably more complicated when one is in a position to observe the organic dimensions of material culture and the way this component is used among living hunter-gatherers. Despite variations among different cultures, the organic part of their material culture seems to dominate significantly over the lithic component, in terms of both time investment in its manufacture and its role in cultural dynamics and interaction. Concerning the question of the arrival or development (i.e. diffusion or independent invention) of new cultural elements or traits, it also becomes clear that different cultural elements can follow different patterns of diffusion, in combination with different types of independent local inventiveness. The ‘currents of cultural influence’ affecting a human culture can, thus, be different for different parts of its material culture, e.g. its knapped lithics technology, its hafting methods, its clothing ornamentation, its burial customs, and so on. Such a complex, multi-layered cultural interaction pattern will in most cases be impossible to reconstruct archaeologically, but it is nevertheless important to keep the likelihood of this layering of interactions in mind, so that we do not lure ourselves into the illusion that the patterns distinguishable in lithic industries necessarily correspond to other, possibly more significant cultural influences that we are unable to reconstruct.
This paper provides a short and general overview of sea level changes and changes of the water le... more This paper provides a short and general overview of sea level changes and changes of the water level in inland water systems and their effect on human settlement through time. The language is German.
The excavation of the submerged Mesolithic settlement Møllegabet started in 1976 as the first exc... more The excavation of the submerged Mesolithic settlement Møllegabet started in 1976 as the first excavation of a submerged land-site in Denmark. The fine preservation of organic materials created methodological problems but also provided fantastic finds, such as a dwelling from 5100 ...
In a world of smart desktop approaches, it can be instructive to return to the roots of the discu... more In a world of smart desktop approaches, it can be instructive to return to the roots of the discussion of whether it is possible to model the behaviour of small-scale human cultures based on environmental parameters. Present-day modellers appear to have forgotten this debate, which played such an important role in the anthropology of the early twentieth century. The question was never settled. Around the 1960s, a group of theoretical archaeological modellers decided that it was possible to model the landscape behaviour of hunter-gatherers based solely on the environmental data and thereby ignore social anthropological information supporting the opposing view. This was the beginning of a tradition of archaeological modelling that ignored differences in cultural landscape behaviour in similar environments and over time, the information provided by the developing discipline of landscape ecology, and with that the documented environmental complexity and its inherent small-scale dynamics. It is difficult to detect any scientific rationale behind this conscious archaeological isolation from relevant data provided by other disciplines, and the demand for cheap and fast management methods rather than science-based arguments appears the more likely driver. This presentation traces the history of this cultural "nature versus nurture" debate and discusses its implications.
Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective de... more Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective detection of submerged Stone Age sites exposed on the seafloor or embedded within its sediments. This phenomenon has recently enabled the non-invasive detection of several hitherto unknown submerged Stone Age sites, as well as the registration of acoustic responses from already known localities. Investigation of the acoustic-response characteristics of knapped lithics, which appear not to be replicated in naturally cracked lithic pieces (geofacts), is presently on-going through laboratory experiments and finite element (FE) modelling of high-resolution 3D-scanned pieces. Experimental work is also being undertaken, employing chirp sub-bottom systems (reflection seismic) on known sites in marine areas and inland water bodies. Fieldwork has already yielded positive results in this initial stage of development of an optimised Human-Altered Lithic Detection (HALD) method for mapping submerged S...
Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective de... more Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective detection of submerged Stone Age sites exposed on the seafloor or embedded in its sediments. Investigation of the acoustic response characteristics of knapped lithics, which appear not to be replicated in naturally cracked lithic pieces, is at the moment under investigation through laboratory experiments and Finite Element modelling of high-resolution 3D-scanned pieces. Experimental work is also being carried with chirp subbottom systems on known sites in sea areas and inland water bodies. Practical survey has already at this initial stage of development of an optimal instrument for mapping of submerged Stone Age sites, provided good results. This paper reviews the maritime archaeological perspectives this method opens for and reports on the present state of this work.
Handbook of Cultural Heritage Analysis, Springer, 2022
This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection an... more This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites. While it has been experimentally established that reasonable amounts of man-knapped flint pieces can be excited by and respond to specific acoustic signal through meters of sea floor sediment, it is not yet known how small assemblages of knapped flint pieces one can obtain a response from and how deep in the sea floor this will be possible. It also remains to check experimentally if other knapped materials than flint (obsidian, quartzite, basalt, etc.) respond in a similar way given that some of their basic characteristics potentially differ from those registered for flint. This technique will facilitate a much more effective and cheap detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites with knapped lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
Handbook of Cultural Heritage Analysis, Springer, 2022
This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection an... more This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites. While it has been experimentally established that reasonable amounts of man-knapped flint pieces can be excited by and respond to specific acoustic signal through meters of sea floor sediment, it is not yet known how small assemblages of knapped flint pieces one can obtain a response from and how deep in the sea floor this will be possible. It also remains to check experimentally if other knapped materials than flint (obsidian, quartzite, basalt, etc.) respond in a similar way given that some of their basic characteristics potentially differ from those registered for flint. This technique will facilitate a much more effective and cheap detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites with knapped lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
The analysis of positioning patterns for individuals in Mesolithic dwellings presented here is ba... more The analysis of positioning patterns for individuals in Mesolithic dwellings presented here is based, on the one hand, on ethnographic data on hunter-gatherer culture-specific patterns for the placing of individuals in the dwelling space and, on the other, on observations in the excavated archaeological record of repetition in the spatial organisation of small artefact concentrations, hearths etc. in the well-preserved remains of Mesolithic dwellings. In addition to the latter spatial organisational patterns, zones containing relatively low densities of debitage fragments have also, in a couple of cases, been seen to coincide with the proposed positions of individuals, as indicated by the 'positive' activity indicators. It has been suggested that these so-called 'seating spaces' are indicative of the fact that individuals seated in a dwelling kept their seating positions free of smaller pieces of waste. They possibly achieved this by sitting on some form of underlay-a small mat of skin or bark-that could easily be cleaned off while they drew to their seating positions larger pieces of debitage that were useful as tools for cutting, shaping etc. Based on data from several well-documented Mesolithic sites, this paper investigates this latter aspect further as a potentially independent way of checking the results of the first phase of distribution analysis of the Mesolithic dwellings. In general, recent excavations incorporating systematic recording of the flint debitage appear to produce meaningful results, while earlier excavations, where this category was recorded in less detail-often just being counted and discarded-tend not to.
Page 1. Review articles Variations on a northern European Stone Age theme Ole Grøn * Alan Saville... more Page 1. Review articles Variations on a northern European Stone Age theme Ole Grøn * Alan Saville. (ed.). Mesolithic Scotland and its neighbours: the early Holocene prehistory of Scotland, its British and Irish context and some north European perspectives. ...
The available literature on intelligence and agent activity shows that some secret organisations,... more The available literature on intelligence and agent activity shows that some secret organisations, specifically in city environments, employ elaborate strategies in terms of the placement of their agents and members in relation to one another. Often, they place members of their networks in small 'enclaves', but sometimes they also become a part of larger 'colonies', which makes protecting them easier. In some cases, this enables the historic detection of where members of these networks lived, and thus, it becomes possible to study them and the organisations they were a part of. This paper provides various examples and outlines the general context of this particular feature.
2015 IEEE/OES Acoustics in Underwater Geosciences Symposium (RIO Acoustics), 2015
The paper discusses the detection of shipwrecks embedded in sea-floor sediments using a Chirp sub... more The paper discusses the detection of shipwrecks embedded in sea-floor sediments using a Chirp sub-bottom profiler. From a methodological-historical perspective it examines four examples of recent chirp recordings of verified shipwrecks embedded in different types of sediment environments, in different geographical and geological areas and from different periods. The effects of shallow water depths, various sediment types, recording speed and different (2D and 3D) sub-bottom profiler systems are briefly discussed. It is concluded that Chirps are well suited for survey purposes, producing high quality 2D profiles of good resolution and satisfactory penetration depth. Furthermore, the equipment is easy to handle from a small boat and allows flexible sailing. This type of 2D data is cheaper and faster to acquire, easier to interpret and apparently also provides better resolution and detail than that from present 3D systems. Chirp data are therefore of great value in identifying and outlining shipwrecks hidden in the sea floor in survey situations where larger areas must be covered. The overall conclusion is that there are grounds for optimism with regard to the application of this method for detection of maritime archaeological targets.
Litteraturen om efterretning og agentvirksomhed viser at nogle hemmelige organisationer ofte spec... more Litteraturen om efterretning og agentvirksomhed viser at nogle hemmelige organisationer ofte specielt i bymæssige bebyggelser har gennemarbejdede strategier for lokalisering af deres agenter og medlemmer. Ofte bosætter de medlemmerne af deres netværk i små enklaver og til tider i større 'kolonier', der gør dem lettere at beskytte. Dette gør det lettere i eftertid at detektere, hvor medlemmer af sådanne netværk var bosat, og dermed at studere dem. Denne artikel giver nogle eksempler og opridser den generelle kontekst.
ABSTRACT Abstract — In the light of the increasing industrial activity in the oceans, management ... more ABSTRACT Abstract — In the light of the increasing industrial activity in the oceans, management of the submerged cultural heritage beyond the shallow zone is becoming a matter of increasing concern. National legislative bodies, together with the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, underline the need to develop a legal and methodological framework for management of the submerged cultural heritage. Besides ship wrecks, which are numerous, Stone Age settlements likely represent the dominant type of submerged cultural heritage sites requiring competent and costeffective management. As the average sea level during successive glaciations was, for long periods, more than 100 m below that of today, and as the subsequently submerged areas appear to have been more intensely inhabited than hitherto imagined, it seems logical to expect well-preserved remains of early human settlement to be associated with these highly productive prehistoric coastal areas. The archaeological finds recorded demonstrate that this settlement, even in Northern Europe, extends back as far as 1 million years. A pre-requisite for a successful implementation of future legislative initiatives is the development of a technical basis consisting of 1) cost-effective methodologies for mapping and investigating the submerged Stone Age sites and 2) cost-effective methods for investigating/excavating the deeper submerged Stone Age sites. This study addresses the latter point because it is seen as being important to facilitate an interactive development of legislation and the possibilities that technological advances in underwater acoustic sensing, positioning, robotics and mechatronics can provide. For example, it would presently be quite problematic to have to carry out an investigation of a well preserved mammoth-hunter site covered by 5 m of sediments and located at a depth of 70 m. How should one excavate such a site at a reasonable quality level? It is likely that we may have to deal with situations of this type in the near future. information can be obtained about such sites during a pre-excavation evaluation stage by physical characterization of cultural and surrounding layers and sediment/dirt DNA analysis, action of blocks of sediment for excavation under controlled conditions during an actual investigation.
HIDDEN DIMENSIONS. Aspects of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer landscape use and non-lithic technology., 2022
As much as ‘hunting’ is a central theme in archaeological hunter-gatherer research, as little do ... more As much as ‘hunting’ is a central theme in archaeological hunter-gatherer research, as little do we actually know about the specificities of hunting strategies and how this has influenced the cultural structuring of landscapes. It is often assumed that game was hunted anywhere, but the question is whether this was the case. Firstly, the archaeological picture of hunting practices and technology is biased by the overrepresentation of sites characterised by quantities of knapped lithics – the interpretation of sites with no or only little lithics is difficult, notably due to the fact that non-lithic materials are often not preserved. Secondly, there is an underestimation of the importance of non-lithic material culture directly or indirectly related to hunting and landscape exploitation. Thirdly, hunting can encompass various strategies, which are associated with different uses of materials and structures in different parts of the landscape. Choices that have been made will certainly have depended on the knowledge about animal behaviour and landscape structure, with an important role for rivers, lakes and seashores. Taking differences in geographical and environmental conditions, as well as variability in hunting strategies and technology into consideration, this paper attempts to identify some tendencies with regard to the hunting of key species of big game (reindeer/caribou; elk/moose; red deer; roe deer; wild boar) in Mesolithic/Late Stone Age landscapes in north-western Europe. The most important aspects of the behaviour of these species are discussed, notably seasonal variations with regard to group composition, occurrence in the landscape, and daily feeding and drinking patterns. Next, we discuss aspects of hunting, notably the establishment of the presence of game, the spotting and approaching prey, and the wounding and following of prey. This is followed by a brief look at the archaeological evidence for big game hunting and aspects of landscape structure in the Mesolithic of north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
HIDDEN DIMENSIONS. Aspects of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer landscape use and non-lithic technology, 2022
Whereas the ‘cultural groups’ of Stone Age hunter-gatherers in archaeology typically are distingu... more Whereas the ‘cultural groups’ of Stone Age hunter-gatherers in archaeology typically are distinguished and classified on the basis of the typology of knapped lithics – whereby lithics are assumed to reflect these people’s territorial configurations as well as their cultural interactions – the reality becomes considerably more complicated when one is in a position to observe the organic dimensions of material culture and the way this component is used among living hunter-gatherers. Despite variations among different cultures, the organic part of their material culture seems to dominate significantly over the lithic component, in terms of both time investment in its manufacture and its role in cultural dynamics and interaction. Concerning the question of the arrival or development (i.e. diffusion or independent invention) of new cultural elements or traits, it also becomes clear that different cultural elements can follow different patterns of diffusion, in combination with different types of independent local inventiveness. The ‘currents of cultural influence’ affecting a human culture can, thus, be different for different parts of its material culture, e.g. its knapped lithics technology, its hafting methods, its clothing ornamentation, its burial customs, and so on. Such a complex, multi-layered cultural interaction pattern will in most cases be impossible to reconstruct archaeologically, but it is nevertheless important to keep the likelihood of this layering of interactions in mind, so that we do not lure ourselves into the illusion that the patterns distinguishable in lithic industries necessarily correspond to other, possibly more significant cultural influences that we are unable to reconstruct.
This paper provides a short and general overview of sea level changes and changes of the water le... more This paper provides a short and general overview of sea level changes and changes of the water level in inland water systems and their effect on human settlement through time. The language is German.
The excavation of the submerged Mesolithic settlement Møllegabet started in 1976 as the first exc... more The excavation of the submerged Mesolithic settlement Møllegabet started in 1976 as the first excavation of a submerged land-site in Denmark. The fine preservation of organic materials created methodological problems but also provided fantastic finds, such as a dwelling from 5100 ...
In a world of smart desktop approaches, it can be instructive to return to the roots of the discu... more In a world of smart desktop approaches, it can be instructive to return to the roots of the discussion of whether it is possible to model the behaviour of small-scale human cultures based on environmental parameters. Present-day modellers appear to have forgotten this debate, which played such an important role in the anthropology of the early twentieth century. The question was never settled. Around the 1960s, a group of theoretical archaeological modellers decided that it was possible to model the landscape behaviour of hunter-gatherers based solely on the environmental data and thereby ignore social anthropological information supporting the opposing view. This was the beginning of a tradition of archaeological modelling that ignored differences in cultural landscape behaviour in similar environments and over time, the information provided by the developing discipline of landscape ecology, and with that the documented environmental complexity and its inherent small-scale dynamics. It is difficult to detect any scientific rationale behind this conscious archaeological isolation from relevant data provided by other disciplines, and the demand for cheap and fast management methods rather than science-based arguments appears the more likely driver. This presentation traces the history of this cultural "nature versus nurture" debate and discusses its implications.
Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective de... more Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective detection of submerged Stone Age sites exposed on the seafloor or embedded within its sediments. This phenomenon has recently enabled the non-invasive detection of several hitherto unknown submerged Stone Age sites, as well as the registration of acoustic responses from already known localities. Investigation of the acoustic-response characteristics of knapped lithics, which appear not to be replicated in naturally cracked lithic pieces (geofacts), is presently on-going through laboratory experiments and finite element (FE) modelling of high-resolution 3D-scanned pieces. Experimental work is also being undertaken, employing chirp sub-bottom systems (reflection seismic) on known sites in marine areas and inland water bodies. Fieldwork has already yielded positive results in this initial stage of development of an optimised Human-Altered Lithic Detection (HALD) method for mapping submerged S...
Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective de... more Acoustic response from lithics knapped by humans has been demonstrated to facilitate effective detection of submerged Stone Age sites exposed on the seafloor or embedded in its sediments. Investigation of the acoustic response characteristics of knapped lithics, which appear not to be replicated in naturally cracked lithic pieces, is at the moment under investigation through laboratory experiments and Finite Element modelling of high-resolution 3D-scanned pieces. Experimental work is also being carried with chirp subbottom systems on known sites in sea areas and inland water bodies. Practical survey has already at this initial stage of development of an optimal instrument for mapping of submerged Stone Age sites, provided good results. This paper reviews the maritime archaeological perspectives this method opens for and reports on the present state of this work.
Handbook of Cultural Heritage Analysis, Springer, 2022
This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection an... more This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites. While it has been experimentally established that reasonable amounts of man-knapped flint pieces can be excited by and respond to specific acoustic signal through meters of sea floor sediment, it is not yet known how small assemblages of knapped flint pieces one can obtain a response from and how deep in the sea floor this will be possible. It also remains to check experimentally if other knapped materials than flint (obsidian, quartzite, basalt, etc.) respond in a similar way given that some of their basic characteristics potentially differ from those registered for flint. This technique will facilitate a much more effective and cheap detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites with knapped lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
Handbook of Cultural Heritage Analysis, Springer, 2022
This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection an... more This chapter presents a non-destructive survey technique under development: acoustic detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites. While it has been experimentally established that reasonable amounts of man-knapped flint pieces can be excited by and respond to specific acoustic signal through meters of sea floor sediment, it is not yet known how small assemblages of knapped flint pieces one can obtain a response from and how deep in the sea floor this will be possible. It also remains to check experimentally if other knapped materials than flint (obsidian, quartzite, basalt, etc.) respond in a similar way given that some of their basic characteristics potentially differ from those registered for flint. This technique will facilitate a much more effective and cheap detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites with knapped lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
The analysis of positioning patterns for individuals in Mesolithic dwellings presented here is ba... more The analysis of positioning patterns for individuals in Mesolithic dwellings presented here is based, on the one hand, on ethnographic data on hunter-gatherer culture-specific patterns for the placing of individuals in the dwelling space and, on the other, on observations in the excavated archaeological record of repetition in the spatial organisation of small artefact concentrations, hearths etc. in the well-preserved remains of Mesolithic dwellings. In addition to the latter spatial organisational patterns, zones containing relatively low densities of debitage fragments have also, in a couple of cases, been seen to coincide with the proposed positions of individuals, as indicated by the 'positive' activity indicators. It has been suggested that these so-called 'seating spaces' are indicative of the fact that individuals seated in a dwelling kept their seating positions free of smaller pieces of waste. They possibly achieved this by sitting on some form of underlay-a small mat of skin or bark-that could easily be cleaned off while they drew to their seating positions larger pieces of debitage that were useful as tools for cutting, shaping etc. Based on data from several well-documented Mesolithic sites, this paper investigates this latter aspect further as a potentially independent way of checking the results of the first phase of distribution analysis of the Mesolithic dwellings. In general, recent excavations incorporating systematic recording of the flint debitage appear to produce meaningful results, while earlier excavations, where this category was recorded in less detail-often just being counted and discarded-tend not to.
Page 1. Review articles Variations on a northern European Stone Age theme Ole Grøn * Alan Saville... more Page 1. Review articles Variations on a northern European Stone Age theme Ole Grøn * Alan Saville. (ed.). Mesolithic Scotland and its neighbours: the early Holocene prehistory of Scotland, its British and Irish context and some north European perspectives. ...
Contains a number of papers dealing with social space in ethnoarchaeological and archaeological p... more Contains a number of papers dealing with social space in ethnoarchaeological and archaeological perspectives.
The excavation of the Møllegabet sites in 1976 started as the world's first systematic excavation... more The excavation of the Møllegabet sites in 1976 started as the world's first systematic excavation of submerged Stone Age. The book presents the results of the excavations with the finds of a shell midden, a boat grave as well as a dwelling partly dug into an early small shell midden. The material represents the earliest as well as the central part of the Ertebølle culture. The dwelling material is used for a spatial analysis.
This book presents the rich material from the excavated Viking Age cemeteries on Langeland, Denma... more This book presents the rich material from the excavated Viking Age cemeteries on Langeland, Denmark. The material is used in an analysis of the social/spatial configuration of the cemeteries.
This book analysis the distributions of a number of artefact types in a series of Maglemosian sit... more This book analysis the distributions of a number of artefact types in a series of Maglemosian sites. As a result is distinguished 2 basic spatial distribution patterns related to the Maglemosian dwellings.
A critical comment to the data interpretation by Willerslev et al not taking into account human a... more A critical comment to the data interpretation by Willerslev et al not taking into account human agency as a possibility in their stated change from herbs to grasses at the end of LGM
The increasingly intensive use and modification of the landscape as a result of modern demands fo... more The increasingly intensive use and modification of the landscape as a result of modern demands for efficient
infrastructure and land use (agricultural production, mining, energy sources, leisure/tourism facilities)
exerts growing pressure on areas and sites associated with our cultural heritage. The use of modern support
technologies is imperative if such rapid changes are to be balanced against the sustainable management
of this resource.
At present, cultural heritage legislation and management is based on expensive and old-fashioned methods of field survey which underpin regional and national registers of cultural heritage sites. These registers are flawed and contain not only a biased sample of sites in respect to period and region, but also include only a tiny fraction of the total population of cultural heritage sites which should be included in management
strategies. This lack of reliable data not only influences realistic forecasting, but also causes costly delays and introduces unnecessary conflicts.
This pilot project directly addresses these issues by initiating the development of a basis for a sustainable, up-to-date and cost-efficient decision-support methodology which relies upon satellite remote-sensing, mapping and monitoring of cultural heritage sites. A central methodological element is the development of highresolution empirical ground data, which facilitate fast and cost-efficient identification of potential cultural heritage anomalies identified in the multispectral data.
The increasingly intensive use and modification of the
landscape as a result of modern demands f... more The increasingly intensive use and modification of the
landscape as a result of modern demands for efficient
infrastructure and land use (agricultural production, mining, energy sources, leisure/tourism facilities) exerts growing pressure on areas and sites associated with our cultural heritage. The use of modern support technologies is imperative, if such rapid changes are to be balanced
against the sustainable management of this resource.
Results obtained in the 2001-2002 pilot project indicated
the existence of a correlation between cultural heritage
sites and variation in the chemical elements in the soil. One central focus of the 2003-project module was to test the possibilities for establishing a concrete correspondence
between the observed anomalies interpreted as possible cultural heritage sites and high-resolution field data to support a distinction between the anomalies that represent cultural heritage sites and those that represent geological phenomena, modern disturbances, etc. The results demonstrate that high-resolution geo-chemical sampling appears to be a promising field for the development of cultural heritage indicators.
The strategy suggested for further development involves
two main elements: 1) the development of methods for distinction of anomalies in satellite images that can represent
cultural heritage sites and 2) the development of ground methods such as soil chemistry to verify or reject the character of such anomalies as cultural heritage sites. These two elements should develop in a feed-back relation with each other to facilitate a precise targeting and mapping of cultural heritage sites that can serve as a basis for a considerably improved monitoring of the cultural heritage and accordingly as an important support technology for the cultural heritage administration.
The increasingly intensive use and modification of the
landscape as a result of modern demands f... more The increasingly intensive use and modification of the
landscape as a result of modern demands for efficient infrastructure and land use (agriculture, mining, energy sources, leisure/tourism facilities) exerts growing pressure on areas and sites associated with our cultural heritage. The use of modern support technologies is imperative, if such rapid changes arc to be balanced against the sustainable management of this resource.
At present, cultural heritage legislation and management
is to a wide extent based on the results of expensive and technologkally conservative methods of field observation, whicb underpin regional and national registers of cultural heritage sites. The content of these registers is therefore a non-representative sample of sites in respect to period and region, which includes only a fraction of the total of all those sites which should be included in management strategics. This
lack of reliable data not only makes realistic forecasting a problem, but also causes costly delays and introduces unnecessary conflicts.
This project directly addresses these issues by initiating the development of a basis for a sustainable, up-todate and cost-efficient decision-support methodology that relies upon satellite remote sensing for mapping and monitoring of cultural heritage sites. A central methodological element is the development of high-resolution geo-chemical ground data, which facilitate fast and cost-efficient verification of potential cultural heritage anomalies identified in the multispectral satellite data. Partial automatisation of the distinction of
cultural heritage anomalies is attempted through the experimental application of pattern-recognition to the satellite data.
The report is based on media reports, expert analyses, and official information posted online. Si... more The report is based on media reports, expert analyses, and official information posted online. Situation According to information from the General Staff as of 06.00 21.05.2022, supplemented by its [18:00 assessment]. Quote. "Russian forces do not stop conducting offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone to establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and maintain the land corridor with the temporarily occupied Crimea.
MOD OG MANDS HJERTE - Axel Anckers Erindringer fra Sibirien m.m., 1955
This is the account - in Danish - of Axel Ancker life in Siberia, escape after the revolution, an... more This is the account - in Danish - of Axel Ancker life in Siberia, escape after the revolution, and thereafter life in Estonia and escape back to Denmark in the late part of WW2. I work on getting the text translated into English.
An analysis of the content and aspirations of the symbol Z used by the Russian forces in their un... more An analysis of the content and aspirations of the symbol Z used by the Russian forces in their unprovoled invasion of Ukraine
Путин наказывает российскую прессу за правду о войне в Украине.
Главный редактор газеты Ро1Шкеп о... more Путин наказывает российскую прессу за правду о войне в Украине. Главный редактор газеты Ро1Шкеп обращается к гражданам России.
This paper discusses a couple of basic methodological problems inherent in predictive modelling a... more This paper discusses a couple of basic methodological problems inherent in predictive modelling as used today in mapping the location of Stone Age settlements based solely on landscape topography/bathymetry. It argues that the modelling approach employed is based on elements adopted from a type of landscape ecology that was abandoned more than 20 years ago, because it was unable to produce reasonable results, and that it can be difficult to develop prediction methodology based on the present understanding of landscape ecology as being extremely complex and dynamic. Furthermore, it maintains that the modelling approach currently employed in Stone Age archaeology is based on assumptions about prehistoric resource-strategic behaviour that are simplistic and out of tune with what we now know. It therefore questions whether it is possible to develop a precise and efficient predictive procedure for modelling the locations of Stone Age sites.
Mesolithic Art - Abstraction, Decoration, Messages, 2023
The paper presents data on the comprehensive use of three-world symbols in Evenk ornament. The Ev... more The paper presents data on the comprehensive use of three-world symbols in Evenk ornament. The Evenk universe consists of three layers; the underworld for the underworld souls of the deceased, the middle world for the present living beings and the upper world where the upper-world souls of the deceased wait for re-birth in their reincarnation system. For the Evenk it is obviously important to refer to these three levels of their universe in ornament and art, as well as in daily practical constructions. In the clothing ornament the colours black, white and blue represent the three worlds. Special three-world symbols are found on some graves, and the use in several practical constructions of tripods instead of single poles dug into the ground also appear to be a reference to the three-world idea. The paper in general discusses the relationship between cosmology, art and practical defence against evil spirits in the Evenk society as an example of the complexity of interpreting the art of prehistoric societies.
As much as ‘hunting’ is a central theme in archaeological hunter-gatherer research, as little do ... more As much as ‘hunting’ is a central theme in archaeological hunter-gatherer research, as little do we actually know about the specificities of hunting strategies and how this has influenced the cultural structuring of landscapes. It is often assumed that game was hunted anywhere, but the question is whether this was the case. Firstly, the archaeological picture of hunting practices and technology is biased by the overrepresentation of sites characterised by quantities of knapped lithics – the interpretation of sites with no or only little lithics is difficult, notably due to the fact that non-lithic materials are often not preserved. Secondly, there is an underestimation of the importance of non-lithic material culture directly or indirectly related to hunting and landscape exploitation. Thirdly, hunting can encompass various strategies, which are associated with different uses of materials and structures in different parts of the landscape. Choices that have been made will certainly have depended on the knowledge about animal behaviour and landscape structure, with an important role for rivers, lakes and seashores. Taking differences in geographical and environmental conditions, as well as variability in hunting strategies and technology into consideration, this paper attempts to identify some tendencies with regard to the hunting of key species of big game (reindeer/caribou; elk/moose; red deer; roe deer; wild boar) in Mesolithic/Late Stone Age landscapes in north-western Europe. The most important aspects of the behaviour of these species are discussed, notably seasonal variations with regard to group composition, occurrence in the landscape, and daily feeding and drinking patterns. Next, we discuss aspects of hunting, notably the establishment of the presence of game, the spotting and approaching prey, and the wounding and following of prey. This is followed by a brief look at the archaeological evidence for big game hunting and aspects of landscape structure in the Mesolithic of north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
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Papers by Ole Grøn
north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia
and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
cheap detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites with knapped lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia
and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.
lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
cheap detection and mapping of submerged Stone Age sites with knapped lithics compared to the techniques available at present. Especially the deep sites down to the approximately 120 m deep coastlines of the glaciations, which are very difficult to localize today, represent an important research potential. In general, the highly productive coast lines must be assumed to have played an important economic role of human society from the Palaeolithic onwards, which means that we miss an important part of the picture of the human cultural development. In spite of the promising perspective of methodological improvement, one must be aware of the limitations of the acoustic method. It will not be able to map Stone Age sites lacking knapped lithics. This chapter presents and discusses the method’s basic technological principles and the experimental results obtained so far, elucidating its potential.
infrastructure and land use (agricultural production, mining, energy sources, leisure/tourism facilities)
exerts growing pressure on areas and sites associated with our cultural heritage. The use of modern support
technologies is imperative if such rapid changes are to be balanced against the sustainable management
of this resource.
At present, cultural heritage legislation and management is based on expensive and old-fashioned methods of field survey which underpin regional and national registers of cultural heritage sites. These registers are flawed and contain not only a biased sample of sites in respect to period and region, but also include only a tiny fraction of the total population of cultural heritage sites which should be included in management
strategies. This lack of reliable data not only influences realistic forecasting, but also causes costly delays and introduces unnecessary conflicts.
This pilot project directly addresses these issues by initiating the development of a basis for a sustainable, up-to-date and cost-efficient decision-support methodology which relies upon satellite remote-sensing, mapping and monitoring of cultural heritage sites. A central methodological element is the development of highresolution empirical ground data, which facilitate fast and cost-efficient identification of potential cultural heritage anomalies identified in the multispectral data.
landscape as a result of modern demands for efficient
infrastructure and land use (agricultural production, mining, energy sources, leisure/tourism facilities) exerts growing pressure on areas and sites associated with our cultural heritage. The use of modern support technologies is imperative, if such rapid changes are to be balanced
against the sustainable management of this resource.
Results obtained in the 2001-2002 pilot project indicated
the existence of a correlation between cultural heritage
sites and variation in the chemical elements in the soil. One central focus of the 2003-project module was to test the possibilities for establishing a concrete correspondence
between the observed anomalies interpreted as possible cultural heritage sites and high-resolution field data to support a distinction between the anomalies that represent cultural heritage sites and those that represent geological phenomena, modern disturbances, etc. The results demonstrate that high-resolution geo-chemical sampling appears to be a promising field for the development of cultural heritage indicators.
The strategy suggested for further development involves
two main elements: 1) the development of methods for distinction of anomalies in satellite images that can represent
cultural heritage sites and 2) the development of ground methods such as soil chemistry to verify or reject the character of such anomalies as cultural heritage sites. These two elements should develop in a feed-back relation with each other to facilitate a precise targeting and mapping of cultural heritage sites that can serve as a basis for a considerably improved monitoring of the cultural heritage and accordingly as an important support technology for the cultural heritage administration.
landscape as a result of modern demands for efficient infrastructure and land use (agriculture, mining, energy sources, leisure/tourism facilities) exerts growing pressure on areas and sites associated with our cultural heritage. The use of modern support technologies is imperative, if such rapid changes arc to be balanced against the sustainable management of this resource.
At present, cultural heritage legislation and management
is to a wide extent based on the results of expensive and technologkally conservative methods of field observation, whicb underpin regional and national registers of cultural heritage sites. The content of these registers is therefore a non-representative sample of sites in respect to period and region, which includes only a fraction of the total of all those sites which should be included in management strategics. This
lack of reliable data not only makes realistic forecasting a problem, but also causes costly delays and introduces unnecessary conflicts.
This project directly addresses these issues by initiating the development of a basis for a sustainable, up-todate and cost-efficient decision-support methodology that relies upon satellite remote sensing for mapping and monitoring of cultural heritage sites. A central methodological element is the development of high-resolution geo-chemical ground data, which facilitate fast and cost-efficient verification of potential cultural heritage anomalies identified in the multispectral satellite data. Partial automatisation of the distinction of
cultural heritage anomalies is attempted through the experimental application of pattern-recognition to the satellite data.
Главный редактор газеты Ро1Шкеп обращается к гражданам России.
the Evenk it is obviously important to refer to these three levels of their universe in ornament and art, as well as in daily practical constructions. In the clothing ornament the colours black, white and blue represent the three worlds. Special three-world symbols are found on some graves, and the use in several practical constructions of tripods instead of single
poles dug into the ground also appear to be a reference to the three-world idea. The paper in general discusses the relationship between cosmology, art and practical defence against evil spirits in the Evenk society as an example of the complexity of interpreting the art of prehistoric societies.
picture of hunting practices and technology is biased by the overrepresentation of sites characterised by quantities of knapped lithics – the interpretation of sites with no or only little lithics is difficult, notably due to the fact that non-lithic materials are often not preserved. Secondly, there is an underestimation of the importance of non-lithic material
culture directly or indirectly related to hunting and landscape exploitation. Thirdly, hunting can encompass various strategies, which are associated with different uses of materials and structures in different parts of the landscape. Choices that have been made will certainly have depended on the knowledge about animal behaviour and landscape structure, with an important role for rivers, lakes and seashores. Taking differences in
geographical and environmental conditions, as well as variability in hunting strategies and technology into consideration, this paper attempts to identify some tendencies with regard to the hunting of key species of big game (reindeer/caribou; elk/moose; red deer; roe deer; wild boar) in Mesolithic/Late Stone Age landscapes in north-western Europe. The most important aspects of the behaviour of these species are discussed, notably seasonal variations with regard to group composition, occurrence in the landscape, and daily feeding and drinking patterns. Next, we discuss aspects of hunting, notably the establishment of the presence of game, the spotting and approaching prey, and the wounding and following of prey. This is followed by a brief look at the archaeological evidence for big game hunting and aspects of landscape structure in the Mesolithic of
north-western Europe. In this context, the presence of sites with deep pits in various part of the region is particularly interesting in contrast to sites characterised by high densities of lithics. Drawing from these insights, we discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of archaeological patterns of geographical diversity in parts of Scandinavia
and the Netherlands, corresponding to landscape zones with relatively high densities of lithics, in contrast to sites and landscape zones with no or very few lithics.