Abstract
The article presents some results of a joint interdisciplinary researchproject, The Stora Förvar Cave and Gotlands peopling, faunal history and subsistence economy/diet development from the Boreal to the Subatlantic, initiated by Christian Lindqvist in 1991. Its objectives include investigations of a number of crucial issues in a long-term perspective, such as the initial settlement, the early faunal history, the early subsistence economy and diet, but also the character of the Mesolithic-Neolithic shift on Gotland, by means of human and zooosteological, carbon isotope and ancient DNA analyses. The article presents and discusses artefact, osteological, and 13C and 14C data and interpretations concerning the duration and character of the Mesolithic occupation —temporary kill/butchering site, seasonal hunting station, semi-sedentary base camp or burial cave —as well as osteobiographical data on the identified human individuals and their burial customs.
Highlights
The Stora Förvar Cave is situated 21.3 m. a.s.l. on the northern part of the island of Stora Karlsö, ca. 8 km to the west of Gotland in the Central Baltic Sea
Göran Possnert (GP)) at the Department of Archaeology in Stockholm in 1993, we presented a new chronological interpretation based on a series of AMS "C dates on human and animal bone collagen from the cave, implying that the levels G. 11-8 comprised the earliest known Mesolithic cultural layer on Gotland, and that there was a chronological and stratigraphical hiatus between ca. 7,440 and 5,500 BP (See tab. 2 and figs. 17-18)
The intensive fire making in the inner part of the cave may hardly be associated with anything else than heating and cooking during longer periods of time. It seems already from the occurrence of a suckling baby, a 12-year old girl and two women fair to say that the occupation in the cave did not merely comprise a hunting station during a very limited season
Summary
The Stora Förvar Cave is situated 21.3 m. a.s.l. (at the cave mouth) on the northern part of the island of Stora Karlsö, ca. 8 km to the west of Gotland in the Central Baltic Sea (figs. 1-2). (at the cave mouth) on the northern part of the island of Stora Karlsö, ca. Dates on bone collagen, arrived on the island of Stora Karlsö about 7,200 cal. It is probable that they came along the south-east Swedish coast via the Baltic island of Öland and across the Ancylus Lake to Stora. Karlsö, where the distance was shortest, there are other possibilities. The distance from the Swedish mainland to Gotland is a good 80 km. The distance from the east Baltic coast is ca. Since the early Mesolithic material culture on Gotland —perhaps due to the importance of marine hunting —especially concerning the flint and bone/antler artefacts, is fairly unsophisticated compared to its mainland counterparts, it is not possible to connect it with any particular source area on Current Swedish Archaeologv, Vot. 7, /999
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