Prof Dr Berit Valentin Eriksen

Research interests


 

Lithic studies
Flint working is the oldest known craft in the world. Moreover, it is a skill that has to be acquired and which cannot be exercised successfully without a certain amount of knowledge, experience, and ability (motor as well as mental, i.e. know-how). Advanced lithic studies operate accordingly within the field of cognitive archaeology. The approach employed emphasises a dynamic technological analysis of primary production sequences (based on experimental flint knapping and refitting of inventories), as well as of schéma and chaîne opératoires, complexity and completeness of assemblages, technological skills, and degrees of specialization in tool production. Functional analysis provides a basis for addressing the handling and use of flint tools. Sourcing and provenance analysis provide a basis for discussing the acquisition of lithic raw material in relation to other socioeconomic activities, such as scheduling, control and management of resources, as well as mobility patterns and communication networks. My current research spans widely – from "Heat treatment of chert as a cultural marker in the Early Mesolithic of Southwest Germany" over "Craft’s apprenticeship and transmission of knowledge in Bronze Age flint working" to more methodological issues pertaining to "Social Dimensions of Technological Change".
Modelling hunter-gatherer colonization of late glacial and earliest postglacial Northern Europe
One of my primary research interests relates to the question of how late glacial and early postglacial hunter-gatherer groups moved into frontier areas and coped with more or less rapid environmental changes. This entails perspectives on origins, colonization and migration; mobility; socio-economic organization of technology and settlement; subsistence economic adaptations and land use; various spatiotemporal issues; as well as the methodological approach. My research focus on the need for a reliable correlation of the relative archaeological and absolute geochronological frameworks for the Late Glacial and Early Postglacial, and on the question of the timing and nature of colonization in relation to the environmental preconditions in Southern Scandinavia. Currently my research is headlined by the project "Pioneers of the North: Transitions and Transformations in Northern Europe evidenced by High-Resolution Datasets (c. 15000–9500 BCE)" financed by the German Research Foundation through the CRC1266 "Scales of Transformation – Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies".
Prehistoric Reindeer Hunters

Reindeer represents a valuable prey species for human hunters in subarctic and arctic biotopes and probably was a key resource for the human colonization of the Baltic and Scandinavian area following the retreat of the Fennoscandian glacier during the Late Glacial. A current research project focuses on the reindeer as a supplier of raw material for artefact production.

In 1897 Sophus Müller, head of the National Museum of Denmark, reported on two recent finds of reindeer antler clubs from Nørre Lyngby and Odense Canal. Unfortunately, both of these implements were stray finds without context. Half a century later, the chronological framework of the reindeer antler clubs and mattocks – now also widely referred to as Lyngby axes – was firmly established to be Late Glacial due to their occurrence in great numbers at the classic Ahrensburgian Stellmoor site. Henceforth, these implements were generally assigned to the Ahrensburgian culture without further argument. However, most of the presently known specimens are single finds and their spatio-temporal distribution is somewhat different from that of Ahrensburgian lithic inventories sensu strictu, whereas it corresponds well with that of the Tanged Point Complex sensu lato. Accordingly, this more general term may represent a more suitable frame of cultural reference for the reindeer antler artefacts (clubs, mattocks, axes) in question.

To investigate this, we employ AMS-dating to systematically date and place these artefacts in their appropriate temporal context. Moreover, an initial pilot study of Lyngby antler artefacts from Stellmoor (David & Eriksen 2021) has established the immaculate research potential of this group of artefacts with respect to a chaîne opératoire analysis aiming at a complete dynamic reconstruction of their manufacture and use life. Based on a thorough typo-technological and chronological re-examination of artefacts from Stellmoor and other north European sites, we will accordingly address questions pertaining to the socio-cultural importance as well as the dating of these implements. A thorough publication is in preparation in collaboration with Helene A. Rose (Göteborgs Universitet) and other colleagues.

É. David & B.V. Eriksen, 2021: Antler Tool’s Biography Shortens Time Frame of Lyngby-axes to the Last Stage of the Late Glacial. In: S. Gaudzinski-Windheuser & O. Jöris (eds), The Beef behind all possible pasts. The tandem-Festschrift in honour of Elaine Turner and Martin Street. Monographien des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 157, 2 (Mainz 2021), pp. 639-656. https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.950.c12583 

 
Mesolithic Burials
During the rescue excavation in 2001 of an Iron Age village at Hammelev in Southern Jutland, Danish archaeologists unexpectedly uncovered a well-preserved ochre grave and various settlement remains from the Early Mesolithic. The ochre grave contained the cremated remains of an adult individual accompanied by unburned grave goods belonging to the Maglemose culture. Radiocarbon analysis confirms an age of approximately 8000 cal BC. From this period human remains, with or without a burial context, are very rare, and cremation graves even more so. Previously, this was thought to be a simple reflection of the fact that these people were highly mobile hunter-gatherers with little or no need for complex burial practices. Accordingly, this is a truly unique find with far-reaching interpretational implications concerning both the living and the dead in the Early Mesolithic of Northern Europe. A thorough publication of the find is being prepared in collaboration with Hans Christian Andersen (Museum Sønderjylland). The following short article gives a basic introduction:

B.V. Eriksen & H.C.H. Andersen, 2016: Hammelev. An Early Mesolithic cremation grave from Southern Jutland, Denmark. In: J. Grünberg et al. (eds), Mesolithic Burials – Rites, symbols and social organization of early postglacial communities. Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle, Band 13/1, pp. 73-80.

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