Coastal Landscapes of the Mesolithic: Human Engagement with the Coast from the Atlantic to the Baltic Sea explores the character and significance of coastal landscapes in the Mesolithic – on different scales and with various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Mesolithic people were strongly connected to the sea, with coastal areas vital for subsistence and communication across the water. This anthology includes case studies from Scandinavia, western Europe and the Baltic area, presented by key international researchers. Topics addressed include large-scale analyses of the archaeological and geological development of coastal areas, the exploration of coastal environments with interdisciplinary methods, the discussion of the character of coastal settlements and of their possible networks, social and economic practices along the coast, as well as perceptions and cosmological aspects of coastal areas. Together, these topics and approaches contribute in an innovative way to the understanding of the complexity of topographically changing coastal areas as both border zones between land and sea and as connecting landscapes. Providing novel insights into the study of the Mesolithic as well as coastal areas and landscapes in general, the book is an important resource for researchers of the Mesolithic and coastal archaeology.

Contemporary public discourses about the ocean are routinely characterized by scientific and environmentalist narratives that imagine and idealize marine spaces in which humans are absent. In contrast, this collection explores the variety of ways in which people have long made themselves at home at sea, and continue to live intimately with it. In doing so, it brings together both ethnographic and archaeological research – much of it with an explicit Ingoldian approach – on a wide range of geographical areas and historical periods.

Mapping Doggerland documents the methodology and results of an innovative project to investigate a large area of the Southern North Sea, submerged during the last Glacial Maximum between 10,000 and 7500 bp.

The zone where sea meets land is an ever-changing environment, which often reveals fascinating details of human occupation and exploitation of the landscape. This fragile historic environment also creates both research and management problems. The papers published in this book were given at a joint conference of the Nautical Archaeology Society and the Society for Landscape Studies. They review various aspects of and approaches to archaeological research in British coastal landscapes, bringing together research from two traditionally separate disciplines; terrestrial and maritime archaeology.

Providing evidence about prehistoric life in Britain, this book focuses on the little studied communities of the South West and Wales. It offers useful case studies from nationally important Bronze Age sites such as Brean Down on the Somerset Levels.

This study of Mesolithic coastal settlements is based on the Man and Sea symposium organized by the Danish Forest and Nature Agency in 1993. The book concentrates on northern Europe, with new studies of the post-glacial transgression of southern Scandinavia, and descriptions of newly-excavated settlements. Regional studies from Norway, Sweden and the East Baltic countries present a large amount of recent data, and demonstrate the importance and the benefits of coastal sites.

The seabed in southern Scandinavia contains numerous traces of a submerged landscape that is thought to be the remnant of a once important habitat for Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Large parts of this landscape were gradually flooded by rising seas between 9500 and 4000 BC and perceptions of the Maglemose culture (9500-6400 BC) have, consequently, been based almost exclusively on former inland settlements. As a result, Early and Late Mesolithic societies have been understood as almost diametrically opposed with regards to their reliance upon marine resources and their degree of sedentism. The main objective of the book is to investigate two questions that are directly related to our current understanding of the populations of the now submerged areas: 1) Do we have a representative picture of the spread of Early Mesolithic sites in southern Scandinavia, or does the weighting towards inland sites reflect the fact that coastal sites have not been identified below present-day sea-level? 2) How did sea-level changes impact Mesolithic populations at different temporal and spatial scales, and how were these experienced from 8000-4000 BC? The book presents an extensive and up-to-date review of various types of evidence from the Boreal period such as faunal remains, fishing instruments, d13C values in bones, settlement positions and available marine resources. These are used to discuss the extent to which marine resources were utilised in the Maglemose culture. Another central component of this book is a series of new coastline models made to determine the Mesolithic sea-level changes / coastline positions. The eight new coastline models are created to facilitate new evaluations of possible relationships between sea-level changes and cultural changes. On the basis of the new coastline models the book also presents the preliminary results of 47 diver investigations conducted with the aim of identifying potential coastal settlements from the Maglemose culture.