Pioneering period 10,000 – 3800 BP (Stone Age)
Hunters began to utilise inland districts as the ice retreated some 10,000 years ago.
The presence of extensive systems of pitfalls and other means of trapping wild reindeer,
dispersed across the mountains, demonstrates that these creatures were an important quarry for Stone Age
hunters, and finds of arrows and other relicts dating from younger periods show that such sites continued to be used through to the Middle Ages, and probably up to the 17th century.
Stone Age site
There are many traces of old hunting traditions. This is a bow rest north of Oaldsbygda in Synnylvsfjord. Photo: Astor Furseth
Only one definite Stone Age occupation site is known, at Lundanes where Geirangerfjord and Sunnylvsfjord meet. Flint tools and chippings dated to about 3000 – 2000 BC have been found here at 70 m a.s.l. (the marine limit here is about 100 m a.s.l.). This was probably a suitable site for hunting and for fishing in the fjord.
Good climate
Agriculture reached Norway in the Late Stone Age, but no finds attributable to early farming have been made in these two areas. However, short distances to varied resources in the mountains and fjords, and a somewhat warmer climate than nowadays, should imply that conditions were favourable in suitable places for combining farming with
hunting, fishing and whaling.
10°C
