Exploring pinnipeds as a prime motivator in the colonizing of the skerry-fjord seascapes of Patagonia and Scandinavia

BJERCK, H.; BREIVIK, H.; PIANA, E. L.; ZANGRANDO, A.F.

Trondheim

Workshop; Marine Ventures, International Symposium 2013; 2013

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Walrus originate from the Old Norse hrosshvalr, ?horse whale?, a telling illustration of pinnipeds as a hybrid animal in a hybrid habitat in the land-sea transition. Most likely, pinnipeds were important pull factors for the terrestrial hunter-gatherers that dared the venture of marine foraging in the northern and southern seas in early Holocene. Pinnipeds are mammals that represent a similar resource as the terrestrial megafauna, with a familiar combination of meat, bone, skin, blood, sinews, and fat. And they may be hunted on shores (or winter ice), with more or less the same methods and equipment as terrestrial animals. The development of marine foraging in Northern Europe seems to happen in parallel with the colonization of the Scandinavian seascapes, around 11 500 cal BP. The earliest sites are without organic preservation, but environmental information and site locations indicate that pinnipeds were the prime target in the colonizers? subsistence. There are indications that seals not only provided food and a supply of raw materials for tools and equipment. The hunters may also have depended on blubber for heating winter dwellings, resulting in a tight relationship to pinnipeds. This seal-dependent subsistence pattern demanded a highly residential mobility based on tents and boats, family groups constantly on the move to new kill sites and campsites. This is in agreement with the hundreds of early Mesolithic small campsites that are documented in coastal Scandinavia ? in contrast to the more stable settlement system in the fish-oriented subsistence of the Middle and Late Mesolithic periods. This cultural trajectory towards a marine lifestyle may have a parallel in southernmost South America. The earliest marine foragers in Patagonia are found in Tierra del Fuego, in the Argentinean part of the Beagle Channel, c. 7500 cal BP. The earliest shell middens include abundant remains of pinnipeds, fish and sea birds, and a fully developed tool kit for marine foraging. However, there are also evidence of older coastal sites without shell midden deposits (Tunel, Imiwaia, Binushmuka, c. 8000?8500 cal BP). At present, it is debated if these sites are related to terrestrial hunter-gatherers ? or a pinniped-based, pre-shellfish marine adaptation similar to Scandinavia. In this discussion, we will explore the nature of pinnipeds, and how this animal may relate to and influence the development of early marine foraging systems ? technology, logistics, and settlement structure.