Asnæs Havnemark: a late Mesolithic Ertebølle coastal site in western Sjælland, Denmark. Issue 2 (3rd July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Price, T Douglas; Ritchie, Kenneth; Gron, Kurt J.; Gebauer, Anne Birgitte; Nielsen, Jens
• Is Part Of: Danish journal of archaeology. Volume 7:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 255
• Page End: 276
• Publication Date: 2018-07-03
• Subjects: Southern Scandinavia -- Stone Age -- Mesolithic -- early Neolithic -- Funnel Beaker -- Holocene -- fish; Excavations (Archaeology) -- Denmark -- Periodicals; Denmark -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; 930.109489
• DOI: 10.1080/21662282.2018.1551979
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2166-2282

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Archaeological material was initially discovered in 1993, eroding from a small cliff on the north side of the peninsula of Asnæs near the town of Kalundborg in western Sjælland, Denmark. Ertebølle Excavations in 2007 exposed the Ertebøllwe cultural layer and obtained materials to describe the site and its contents before it was destroyed by the sea. The 22 m 2 of careful excavations exposed a terrestrial midden deposit and the late Mesolithic cultural layer which had been partially preserved under a raised beach ridge. The flint tools consist primarily of projectile points, flake axes, some distally concave truncated blade knives, and a very few scrapers. There were large numbers of well-preserved faunal remains including bone fishhooks and preforms, seal bones, large bird bones, and an extraordinary amount of fish bone. A quantity of pottery was recovered in the excavations as well, including both pointed-bottom vessels and oval lamps in different sizes from the late Mesolithic and several examples of what are probably Early Neolithic ceramics. The rich occupation layer with its diverse artifactual content, including a fragment of a human jaw, documents a sizable residential settlement on the north coast of the Asnæs peninsula.