Houses reused for over 1000 years during Stone Age

1/3. Photo shows the excavation of a reused Norwegian tent site at Mohalsen in Vega municipality in Nordland county. The site is dated to approximately 8300 BCE. Archaeologist Silje Fretheim is on the right. Photo: Hein B. Bjerck

We’ve always heard that Stone Age people lived in caves. It turns out that’s not the case. They often lived in earthen huts, which they reused and kept up rather than building new ones.

Small, simple earthen huts from the Stone Age appear to have been used for 1000 years. They may have stood empty for 40-50 years at a time before being maintained and reused – again and again.

Archaeologist Silje Fretheim at NTNU’s Department of Archaeology and Cultural History finds that incredible. “Few buildings today have lasted for as long as 1000 years. Their use for that long tells us there was a point to maintaining the homes,” she says.

She recently discussed her doctoral thesis on housing and settlement traditions in Norway in the Mesolithic period. Her research gives a quite different picture of Stone Age people than today’s youth are taught at school.

“I have school age children myself, and I discovered that most schools still teach that Stone Age people lived mainly in caves. But they absolutely didn’t,” Fretheim says.

3/3. This is how a pit house might have looked. Drawing: Astrid Johanne Nyland

The Mesolithic period in Norway spans approximately 5500 years, starting about 9500 BCE, when people were nomadic hunters and gatherers. At the beginning of the period, people lived in tents believed to have been made from animal hides, although no tent coverings have been found from this time. Eventually the homes became more permanent. [...] geminiresearchnews.com

Reference: Silje Fretheim doctoral dissertation: “Mesolithic dwellings. An empirical approach to trends and present interpretations in Norway.”


Actualización. Cabañas mesolíticas noruegas reocupadas y reutilizadas durante 1000 años
Durante el Mesolítico, un periodo en que las poblaciones nómadas se movían por el paisaje con su casa a cuestas, en busca de recursos para su supervivencia, en Noruega comienza a vislumbrarse una tendecnia a reocupar y reconstruir una y otra vez los mismos campamentos, en algunos casos durante más de mil años. La investigadora Silje Fretheim ha defendido recientemente su tesis doctoral, que trata sobre este fenómeno, y habla de cómo estas primeras ruinas de construcciones habrían constituido un incipiente paisaje cultural, y habrían funcionado como elememtos de atracción para los grupos humanos, propiciando cada vez una mayor vinculación con un territorio determinado y la explotación de sus recursos de un modo más profundo y desarrollado...