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From Oysters to Cockles at Hjarnø Sund: Environmental and Subsistence Changes at a Danish Mesolithic Site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2018

Johan S Larsen ,
Bente Philippsen ,
Claus Skriver ,
Peter M Astrup ,
Per Borup  and
Marcello A Mannino
Johan S Larsen
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Moesgaard Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University, Moesgaard Allé 20, 4230, second floor, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark
Bente Philippsen
Affiliation:
Aarhus AMS Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Claus Skriver
Affiliation:
Moesgaard Museum, Moesgaard Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark
Peter M Astrup
Affiliation:
Moesgaard Museum, Moesgaard Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark
Per Borup
Affiliation:
Horsens Museum, Sundvej 1A, 8700 Horsens, Denmark
Marcello A Mannino*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Moesgaard Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: marcello.mannino@cas.au.dk.
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Abstract

Archaeological fieldwork at Hjarnø Sund in Horsens Fjord (eastern Jutland, Denmark) has explored an eroding Mesolithic shell midden. Its stratigraphy is characterized by two layers, containing marine mollusk taxa typically collected by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers for food. In the field, the lower layer appeared to be dominated by oysters (Ostrea edulis), while the upper one by cockles (Cerastoderma edule), which was confirmed by our zooarchaeological study. Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) dating on shells and paired charcoal samples from the two layers indicate that these are chronologically consecutive (separated by as little as 0–163 yr [95.4%]) and that the oyster-to-cockle shift dated between ~5500–5300 and ~5300–5200 cal BC (around or just after the Kongemose/Ertebølle transition). The shell midden at Hjarnø Sund is, thus, one of the oldest-known in Denmark, demonstrating that intensive shellfish exploitation was a hallmark of the Ertebølle culture from its inception. Oyster-to-cockle shifts, thus, also occurred at times other than the Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition and may have been ultimately caused by local shoreline displacements, resulting from changes in sedimentation, possibly induced by drops in relative sea level.

Keywords

Cerastoderma eduleErtebølleMesolithicOstrea edulisshell midden
Type
Environmental Context
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 60 , Special Issue 5: 2nd Radiocarbon in the Environment Conference, Debrecen, Hungary, July 3–7, 2017 Part 2 of 2 and Radiocarbon & Diet 2 International Conference Aarhus, Denmark, June 20–23, 2017 , October 2018 , pp. 1507 - 1519
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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