Asnæs Havnemark: a late Mesolithic Ertebølle coastal site in western Sjælland, Denmark

Abstract

Archaeological material was initially discovered in 1993, eroding from a small cliff on the north side of the peninsula of Asnaes near the town of Kalundborg in western Sjaelland, Denmark. Ertebolle Excavations in 2007 exposed the Ertebollwe cultural layer and obtained materials to describe the site and its contents before it was destroyed by the sea. The 22 m2 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 Asnaes peninsula.