Скачать или смотреть The ‘coffee bean’ sinkers of Late Mesolithic West Norway

Combining experiments and photogrammetric modelling to study the crafting of small soapstone artefacts

by Mette C. Adegeest
PhD student, Norway

In the hunter-fisher-gatherer societies of the Norwegian Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, stable and abundant supplies of marine fish were a major food source and probably contributed to the development of an increasingly stable, semi-sedentary settlement system. Fishing equipment must have played an important role in these societies, but has not always received much archaeological attention. ‘Coffee bean’ sinkers have been particularly underappreciated. These small, sometimes decorated, soapstone (or soapstone-like) objects are a common find along the West-Norwegian coast and are thought to have been used in line fishing during the Late Mesolithic and possibly into the Early Neolithic. Previous studies have considered their distribution and forms, but little else.

My PhD project focuses on these objects and the role they played in Late Mesolithic West-Norwegian societies, as a way of gaining new insights into a variety of interconnected Late Mesolithic developments in Norway. This paper will focus specifically on the chaîne opératoire of making these objects, presenting actualistic experiments we have carried out to investigate their production and ornamentation. The softness of the material makes these objects quick and easy to form—requiring no specialised toolkit or advanced skills—and invites ornamentation. An analysis and comparison of highly accurate and precise photogrammetric 3D models of both original artefacts and experimentally produced objects provides further details, including clues to the specific kinds of tool used to make the originals.