Shellfish exploitation in Stone Age Arctic Norway: procurement patterns and household activities

Archaeological evidence for coastal shellfish exploitation in Arctic Norway mostly dates from 5300 to 1500 BC, encompassing the terminal Mesolithic, the Late Stone Age, and the beginning of the Early Metal Period. Shell middens are generally associated with semi-subterranean houses, but may also occur as free-standing deposits. The primary shellfish taxa exploited were Littorina littorea, Arctica islandica and Mytilus edulis. Most of the species utilized were available in the littoral zone and were easily procured in the course of daily household activities, but sub-littoral A. islandica would have required greater investment in procurement technology and time, as well as labor cooperation. Shellfish were an occasional dietary supplement and could also serve as fishing bait. Spatial and temporal variation in shellfish assemblages reflects local marine ecology, sea-level changes, household dynamics, and perhaps field processing. Interpretation of the existing data is constrained by inadequate midden sampling and documentation methods.     

Dressed for Ritual,Dressed for Life. A Migration-Period Grave from Sande in Norway

A RICHLY FURNISHED GRAVE from the migration period in Norway is our starting point for a discussion of the impact of dress in life and death. The Sande farm is situated on the southern tip of Norway on the Lista peninsula, an area renowned for its many rich finds from the migration period.⁴⁴ Helliksen 2006 Helliksen, W 2006, ‘Rik kvinnegrav og naust fra folkevandringstid på Sande i Herad’, Listamuseet Årbok 2006, 7–9. [Google Scholar], 7; Lund 2008 Lund, W H 2008, ‘Grav, kult og hall i folkevandringstid og merovingertid på Sande i Farsund k, Vest-Agder’, Primitive Tider 10, 7–19. [Google Scholar], 8–10. A high-status grave from Sande in Vest-Agder was excavated in 2005 and was found to be lavishly equipped, not least in terms of jewellery items and dress fittings. Some remarkable textile remains were also preserved. The types of adornment and their position in the grave strongly suggest this was the burial of a woman, while the jewellery and textiles and their composition, style and appearance, all offer valuable information on the story of the individual and the dress code of the time. This article offers the first detailed exploration of this burial and its assemblage and an in-depth discussion of the surviving textile fragments and dress equipment as evidence of a form of dress and display that may have operated in life and death.     

Differentiated regional entrepreneurial discovery processes. A conceptual discussion and empirical illustration from three emergent clusters

ABSTRACT

The paper aims to contribute to better understanding of entrepreneurial discovery processes and regional industrial growth by examining (1) how different regional contexts affect entrepreneurial discoveries, and (2) how entrepreneurial discoveries support specific types of industrial path development in different regions. The paper includes empirical studies of the formation and growth of three ‘official’ regional clusters supported by Innovation Norway’s programme for immature clusters. The paper argues that entrepreneurial discoveries should be institutionalized (by system level entrepreneurs) to achieve considerable regional industrial effects. In our cases institutionalization occurs through the creation of cluster organizations and development of the knowledge infrastructure.     

The Dilmun temple on Failaka,Kuwait

The Kuwaiti‐Danish 2009 excavations on Failaka produced new evidence for the dating of the Dilmun temple in Tell F6. The affinities of this temple to the Barbar temples in Bahrain are emphasised, whereas the hypothesis of a Syrian‐inspired temple tower is questioned.     

THE VIETNAM WAR

This article investigates the role of the Vietnam War in Danish and Norwegian politics. We argue that Danish and Norwegian membership in NATO and an unstable parliamentary situation may explain why these countries, unlike Sweden, did not take on the lead in the international protest against the war. Non‐socialistic coalitions came to power in Norway and Denmark in the latter half of the 1960s which to an extent explains why the social democratic parties in both countries became more critical of the US. By the end of the 1960s, foreign policy as well as public attitudes towards the war converged in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and in all three countries powerful protest movements emerged that were remarkably similar. The Vietnam War strengthened the left in general and promoted a leftist politics of solidarity that influenced Swedish, Danish and Norwegian foreign policy‐making of the 1970s.