Rekonstruktion av paleomiljön för området kring den Mesolitiska stenåldersboplatsen vid Sammakko, Norrbotten

• Main Authors: Möller, Per, Nielsen, Anne Birgitte, Björck, Svante
• Format: Report
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Department of Geology, Lund University 2022
• Subjects: Geology; mesolitisk boplats; paleomiljötrekonstruktion; vegetationsrekonstruktion; Veikimorän; Norrbotten; Arctic; Gällivare; Kring; Linaälven; Sammakko; Dwarf birch
• Online Access: https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/c6d9b1df-7835-464d-bd10-b1981e7439f8; https://portal.research.lu.se/files/115935108/LUNDQUA_Report_43.pdf

A large number of quartz fragments from knapping andburnt bone, discovered during reconnaissance (NorrbottensMuseum) of forest-cleared areas north of the villageSammakko, c. 40 km SE of Gällivare, have been interpretedto indicate a short-term used dwelling site. Th esite, located c. 100 meters north of the Linaälven Riverand at the edge of an almost overgrown pond, underwentarchaeological preliminary investigation in the summerof 2019. Collected material of burnt bone and charcoalshows that the settlement was used c. 8800 - 8900 yearsago by Mesolithic hunters. Th e present report includesa landscape analysis and vegetation reconstruction, thelatter carried out through pollen analysis of sedimentarylayers from two nearby lake basins, of the area into whichthese early Holocene hunters migrated. Th e settlement islocated in a so-called Veikimorain area, a landscape withhigh and broad plateaus with depressions in between.Th is landscape was formed during the fi nal phase of aprevious glaciation, a landscape morphology that wasonly very slightly aff ected by the most recent glaciationDating of the lowest sediment layers in the lake basins(silt, clay) shows that current lake basins became completelyice-free c. 9200 years ago while surrounding higher-situated areas became ice-free at least 600 years earlier- stagnant ice residues lingered in the terrain lows whilethe gradually ice-free landscape in higher locations wasoccupied by a vegetation of the Arctic heathland type.When the hunter-gatherer settlement at Sammakko wasutilized, the landscape had been completely ice-free forc. 300–400 years and it constituted an inland settlementat c. 20 km distance from the coastline of the LittorinaSea further east. From the pollen analyzes we can see thateven a little earlier the vegetation had changed from arcticheath to an open birch forest (Betula) with elements ofpine (Pinus) and in more humid locations there was alder(Alnus). Dwarf shrubs, including dwarf birch (Betulanana), willow (Salix) and juniper (Juniperus) were ...