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 Asnæs near the town of Kalundborg in western Sjælland, Denmark. Ertebølle Excavations in 2007 exposed the Ertebøllwe  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 Asnæs peninsula.

KEYWORDS:

• Southern Scandinavia
• Stone Age
• Mesolithic
• early Neolithic
• Funnel Beaker
• Holocene
• fish

Acknowledgments

We would particularly like to thank the landowner Eirik Vinsand who was most gracious and hospitable in facilitating our investigations at Asnæs Havnemark. It is also important to recognize Egon (‘Columbus’) Iversen recently decreased, who originally found the site eroding from the sea cliff on Asnæs and reported it to the Kalundborg Museum. This article is dedicated to his memory. As always the Kalundborg Museum was a wonderful host.

Research excavations were sponsored by the Carlsberg Foundation and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School. The project was a collaboration between the Kalundborg Museum and the Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Discussions with Lisbeth Pedersen prior to the start of the project resulted in further information and permission for the study. Permission for the excavations was obtained from the landowner Eirik Vinsand, the Teknisk Forvaltning in Kalundborg Kommune, and the Regional Miljø office in Roskilde. The Kalundborg Museum was responsible for the project documentation and finds. These materials were stored at Kalundborg Museum and some were later moved to the regional museum stores at Museum Vestsjælland in Holbæk.

The participants in the excavations for the long haul were Jens Nielsen, Ken Ritchie, Terry Slocum, Lone Ritchie Andersen, Vanessa Smolenski, Kurt Gron, and Charlie the Dog. Sincere and deep thanks to all for the pleasure of our cooperation. Nanna Noe-Nygaard, Søren Andersen, Peter Vang Petersen, and Per Poulsen visited the excavations and offered substantial help in our understanding of the site. Deep and sincere thanks also to Nanna Noe-Nygaard for valuable discussions regarding the worked dog bone and the faunal assemblage in general. Many thanks to Peter Vang Petersen, Anders Fischer, Eva Koch, Sönke Hartz, and Aikaterini Glykou for their help and assistance in examining some of the excavated material and offering opinions on type and origin. Martin Pavon of the Museum Vestsjælland helped greatly in finishing this manuscript.

Many thanks also to the director and staff at The University of Wisconsin-Madison Nuclear Reactor for the NAA analysis of the sherds from Asnæs Havnemark. Also many thanks to Paul  Fullagar at the University at the North Carolina-Chapel Hill for the TIMS measurements of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr on the Asnæs pottery.

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.