Two tests of the prehistoric cultural chronology of Varanger,North Norway

The Younger Stone Age of the Varanger fjord area is tested by means of the altitudinal relationship between archaeological sites and shorelines, and by C‐14 dates on cultural material from North Norway and Finland. The test indicates that the sites from different cultural phases cluster differently in relation to different shorelines with the exception of the sites from phase III, which overlap considerably with sites from phases II and IV. Altogether the altitudinal overlapping suggest that there is greater temporal overlapping between different phases than hitherto believed. The C‐14 dates on cultural material suggest that the temporal periods corresponding with these phases cover different time spans and are approximately 1000 C‐14 years older than previously estimated.