Over the last 20 years a vast number of new and important Swedish Mesolithic sites have been excavated and published in different ways as articles, books and site reports. As yet there has been no study that tries to bring the loose ends together and so the main task of this important new work by one of Sweden’s leading prehistorians is to provide an extensive overview of some of the main sites and results. The timespan is long: c. 10 000-4000 BC and the amount and choice of data very large so rather than attempt to describe everything in detail Mats Larsson focuses on a series of fundamental research perspectives concerning Mesolithic lifeways and settlement patterns and chooses key sites to illustrate them. The emphasis is on southern and middle Sweden, though the country’s northern regions are in no way forgotten. This companion piece to the author’s recent successful volume Paths Towards a New World: Neolithic in Sweden, written for a general audience is also a must for all those archaeologists interested in the Mesolithic of Northern Europe and would be students of prehistory

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Mesolithic Period in Sweden: An Introduction
  • Mesolithic on the move
• 2 Hunters in the Forest
  • Ageröds mosse
  • Settlement patterns and hunting/collecting strategies
  • Life and death
  • The end of the Mesolithic in Scania
    • Segebro: an early Atlantic settlement at the coast
    • Ageröd V: an Atlantic bog site
    • Tågerup: settlement and burials
    • The old woman
    • The double burial
    • The man’s grave
    • Yngsjö and Årup
  • The Last Hunters: the Ertebølle Culture
    • Soldattorpet, Limhamn
    • Löddesborg
    • Skateholm
  • Tågerup
    • Houses and burials
    • Bredasten
    • Yngsjö
• 3 Blekinge: New Discoveries
  • Bro 597
  • Damm 6
  • Norrje Sunnansund: tons of fish
  • Lussabacken norr
• 4 Hunters along the Kalmar Strait and on Öland
  • Tingby, a much discussed house
    • New excavations at Tingby
    • Concluding remarks
  • Öland
• 5 Seal Hunters on Gotland
  • Taking care of the dead
• 6 Into the Forest: Early Hunters in the Southern Swedish Interior
• 7 Pioneers: Hunters in Eastern Middle Sweden
  • Östergötland: new discoveries
  • The Mjölby sites
    • Mörby
    • Sand covered houses: Högby
    • Storlyckan: another site with a dwelling structure
    • The hut
    • Spatial distribution
  • Western Östergötland, Lake Tåkern
  • Sites around Linköping
  • Life and death around Motala
    • Strandvägen
    • House 1
    • House 2
  • Death in the lake
  • The Late Mesolithic in Östergötland
  • Pioneering hunters: some remarks
• 8 Pioneers in the Early Archipelagos of Eastern Middle Sweden
  • Early sites
    • Peak 85
    • Sites on the A73
  • Late sites
• 9 Moving Inland
• 10 The Western Part of Sweden
  • The earliest sites
  • Hensbacka Culture
    • Inland sites
  • Sandarna Culture
  • The dead
  • The Late Mesolithic
    • Lihult
    • Lihult inland sites
  • Transverse arrowheads
• 11 Moving North
  • Leksand
  • Along the coast: further north
• 12 Pioneers in the Interior of Northern Sweden
  • The earliest sites
  • Later Mesolithic
• Epilogue
• References