Innovation Processes and Knowledge-Transfer Systems within South Scandinavian Stone Age Mobility

From archaeological and genetic data, we know of numerous migration events from c. 4.100 to 1.700 BCE.

They occurred in specific situations that varied at multiple spatio-temporal scales with different rhythms in various contexts.

But, we do not fully understand how these migration events impacted on humans and their material lives, or how mobility played out in terms of changing social relationships and interaction. The aim of this 3-year research project is to explore this.

We will do so by investigating innovation processes and knowledge-transfer systems within south Scandinavian Stone Age mobility.

We will use GIS landscape approaches, technological analysis of material culture, and archaeogenetic and archaeometric analysis.

Drawing on competences within Archaeology, Genomics, Science and Technology Studies and Migration Studies, we will: integrate analyses of large-scale archaeological excavation records with archaeogenetic data; explore spatio-temporal variation in mobility, population change and change in human’s material lives and correlate these with each other; re-theorize Stone Age migration to test various models on mobility against our results; and, interpret transformation processes to explain qualities of the role played by innovation and knowledge-transfer within Stone Age mobility.

We expect our result to stimulate new ways to understand mobility in long-term perspective, migration in other (pre)historic periods and, tentatively also in modern society.