Between coast and inland – pottery use in the Ertebølle Culture and its impact on settlement patterns, resource exploitation and social complexity

Abstract

Abstract The Erteboelle culture (ca. 5100 − 4000/3900 cal BC) belongs to the final Mesolithic of Northern Germany and Southern Scandinavia and is understood as a primarily coastal phenomenon. Furthermore, due to its aquatic subsistence preferences, a (seasonal) settlement permanence and other traits such as hierarchies, food storage and pottery use it is classified as a complex hunter-gatherer society. Before this background, the (recently completed) PhD project “Early pottery in the Baltic” focusses on the origins of ceramic technology and its impact on Ertebølle lifestyle and settlement patterns as well as on the neolithisation process. Through the analysis of previously neglected inland find assemblages and an extensive comparison to the coastal materials the project developed a new perspective on settlement cycles and subsistence patterns. A further analysis of the Ertebølle material culture centering around ceramic technology was able to show that ceramics significantly influenced the development of the latter and thus had much more impact on Mesolithic lifestyles than previously recognized. The use of ceramic vessels led to an intensification of existing subsistence and resource preferences which stabilised formerly established patterns and helped anchor the typical material signature and (coastal) settlement focus of the Erteboelle Culture. In this sense, ceramics are involved in forming complex social structures rather than resulting from them and facilitate the gradual establishment of Neolithic modes of subsistence by replacing more “traditional” late Mesolithic structures.