These questions are relevant in today's society but are also central to gaining insight into prehistory. Not least for understanding the organization and development of Stone Age societies, this is particularly important, as it is primarily fragments of technology that have been preserved from this period. Based on the chaîne opératoire approach, new methods have been developed in recent years for the analysis of the archaeological material from the Stone Age. This opens new possibilities for exploring the social aspects of technology and provides renewed perspectives on the socio-cultural development in Northern Europe during the Stone Age.
The research group examines the socio-cultural development in Northern Europe in the period 11,000 – 2,000 BCE by studying the technological variation documented in the archaeological record from the Stone Age. Through this, we want to contribute to widening the knowledge about how the social, political and technological development were connected. Topics such as technology’s role in society between practical function and social marker, the geographical distribution of technological traditions, how and why technologies vary or are maintained over time, transmission of technological knowledge, and the relationship between technology, tradition, social mechanisms, and the natural environment and access to resources, are central to our work.
The group's purpose is to increase research on these topics, by focusing on new archaeological methods and social theory. Stone Age societies existed long before there were nation states, and international perspectives and cooperation are therefore necessary to be able to understand the premises for the socio-cultural development. However, we lack a good overview of the distribution of different technologies and object types in time and space. The group therefore has an interdisciplinary profile and will explore various digital methods and approaches to find solutions with a view to achieve a better overview of the data. Through the work to compile the archaeological finds from several areas in Northern Europe, the Norwegian archaeological material will be placed in an international context.