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The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2017) 00.0: 1–17
doi: 10.1111/1095-9270.12211
Untangling Social, Ritual and Cosmological Aspects of Fishhook
Manufacture in the Middle Mesolithic Coastal Communities
of NE Skagerrak
Anja Mansrud
Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway, anja.mansrud@khm.uio.no
This article investigates the entanglement of environment, materiality, technology and cosmology in the Middle Mesolithic Stone
Age (8300–6300 cal. BC), of the NE Skagerrak area of Eastern Norway and Western Sweden, by focusing on the manufacture
of bone fishhooks. The argument made is that fishhooks are key objects for exploring the world-views of Middle Mesolithic
coastal groups. Fishhooks were linked with daily subsistence, invested with much labour, and their manufacture was entwined
with the hunting of ungulates that provided their raw material. This process involved the transformation of living bodies into
artefacts. Thus, it is argued that these mundane objects were considered active agents in mediating the dangers and insecurities
of an unpredictable maritime life.
© 2017 The Author
Key words: bone fishhooks, ungulates, mundane objects, bone technology, entanglement, cosmology.
Soon after the sun had been so severely beaten, Maui’s
brothers complained that he, Maui Potiki, was very idle,
that he would not go to fish; the women and the old
men joining in the complaint. This caused Maui to make
his grandfather’s jawbone into a fishhook, which he kept
concealed in his garment. On going out with his brothers to
fish, they laughed at him; asking why he went with them, as
he had no fishing tackle. He answered by requesting them
to go further out to sea, and still further, until they lost
sight of land; his brothers murmured louder than before
against him for this daring act; they sailed on, however, and
Maui let down his line and hook; which was ornamented
with pearls and carving; the hook caught the house of
Tanganui the son of Tongaroa, the god of fish. (White,
1856: 9)
So goes the Maori origin myth of how the
demi-God Maui used an ancestral jawbone
as a fishhook to fish up the islands of New
Zealand. The story expresses a prevalent theme in the
origin myths among coastal cultures: cosmological
models were fundamentally interrelated with the
aquatic world and linked to notions of how the earth,
through the agency of some intermediary agent,
emerged out of a primeval cosmic ocean (Descola,
2013: 350; Rappengl¨
uck, 2014: 298). The story also
demonstrates how materiality is an important medium
for constructing and reproducing cosmology in non-
literate societies. Material objects are required
to symbolize abstract thinking. Externalizing ideas
and representing them materially makes significant
concepts and relationships tangible (Helms, 1993,
1998). Additionally, the myth demonstrates how
seemingly inconspicuous, mundane objects can be
attributed a great deal of importance beyond their
functional value. In this article, manufacture of
bone fishhooks will be used as a point of departure
for exploring the links between the environment,
materiality, technology and cosmology of Mid-
dle Mesolithic coastal communities in north-eastern
Skagerrak of Eastern Norway and Western Sweden
between 8300 and 6300 cal. BC (Fig. 1).
Fishing with line and hook is a relatively rare
subsistence practice among modern hunter-gatherers
(Mauss, 2006: 120–121). Yet fragments of bone
fishhooks and debris from fishhook manufacture
frequently occur among the faunal assemblages at
Middle Mesolithic archaeological sites. Even though
the origin of fishhooks for freshwater fishing extends
at least as far back as the late Upper Palaeolithic,
c.10,000 BC (Gramsch et al., 2013), we do not
know whether the use of fishhooks was included in
the technological repertoire of the communities on
the North Sea Continent who inhabited land now
submerged. Thus, the fishhooks from NE Skagerrak are
to date the oldest that originate from coastal settlements
in Europe. So far, these rare items have been the
subject of limited research. Previous studies of bone
technology and fishhooks are either interpretations
along functional lines, where bone objects are related
© 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 00.0
Figure 1. Map of the northern and eastern Skagerrak
Middle Mesolithic cultural area. (Map: Per Persson/KHM)
to site function and economy ( ˚
Ahrberg, 2007), or
macro-scale approaches, aimed at identifying regional
technological traditions (techno-complexes) by the
use of chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoires (David, 2009; Bergsvik and
David, 2015). In the following, technologie culturelle,
or cultural technology, will be applied as a method for
untangling the social, ritual and cosmological aspects
of fishhook manufacture (Lemonnier, 1992, 2013;
Coupaye, 2009a and b). Technological anthropologist
Pierre Lemonnier (2013) argues that the manufacture
of simple objects and use of everyday technologies may
be as meaningful as the manufacture of ritual objects
and ritualized actions in mediating relationships.
Artefact manufacture can involve technical and ritual
aspects simultaneously. Central to my analysis is
the notion of ‘perissological resonators’: mundane
objects the manufacture of which brings to mind and
communicates key values and world-views (Lemonnier,
2013).
Inhabiting an aquatic environment
A particular environment retains in-built properties,
material qualities and resources, which aords certain
opportunities for human technological practice and
perception (Ingold, 2000: 166). Therefore, I will begin
by presenting the relationship between the local
landscape and the natural environment of the Middle
Mesolithic coastal culture during the Boreal (8300–
7000 cal. BC) and Early Atlantic chronozones (7000–
6300 cal. BC). Within these Holocene climate periods,
major geological and climatic changes completely
altered the flora and landscape of NE Skagerrak (P˚
asse,
2005, Sørensen et al., 2014a and b). These changes
in the natural environment had a seminal influence
on wildlife and the conditions for human settlement.
The abundance of Middle Mesolithic coastal sites
in NE Skagerrak is an unusual exception in a
European context. In this region, the rapid deglaciation
caused continuous isostatic uplift, which resulted in
strongly elevated shorelines; hence the former coastal
settlements are preserved on dry land. Continuous
isostatic rebound characterizes the Oslofjord area and
the northern part of Bohusl¨
an, leading to a fast
and continuous shoreline elevation. In this part of
the region, the Middle Mesolithic sites are located
48–100 m above present sea-level. The shoreline
displacement varies. According to recent investigations
in Telemark and Vestfold (Sørensen et al., 2014a and
b) the isostatic rebound was 5 m per 100 years in the
early post-glacial. It must have been evident to the
people inhabiting the area because desirable locations
in natural harbours were only available for short time-
spans. During the Boreal chronozone, the isostatic
rebound decreased to 5 mm per year around 8000 cal.
BC, and then increased from approximately 10 mm per
year after 7500 cal. BC up to about 15 mm per year
around 7000 cal. BC.
The distribution of Middle Mesolithic sites inves-
tigated so far is strongly linked with an aquatic
environment. The settlements and activity areas are
located on former islands, in bays and inlets with
natural harbours in an archipelago that stretched along
the west coast of Sweden, from southern Bohusl¨
an up
to the inner Oslo Fjord (Fig. 1). In addition to this
saltwater archipelago, major rivers extended into the
interior (Gundersen, 2013: 36). Middle Mesolithic sites
are also encountered along these rivers and adjacent to
lakes in the interior of southern Norway and Sweden
(Boaz, 1999; Melvold, 2011; Knutsson and Knutsson,
2012). Thus, it could be argued that the people
of the Middle Mesolithic societies literally inhabited
a ‘waterworld’ (Mansrud and Persson, forthcoming)
consisting of saltwater, freshwater and brackish areas.
Although poorly preserved and few in number, the
identified bone fragments recovered from excavated
sites give a proxy indicator of the overall subsistence,
and targeted prey. The faunal assemblages are
characterized by a variety of dierent species, including
2 © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
A. MANSRUD: RITUAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MESOLITHIC FISHHOOK MANUFACTURE
birds, fur-bearing animals, sea mammals, and large
ungulates such as roe deer, red deer, and wild boar
(Mansrud, 2014: 74–77). The range of species found at
the coastal sites indicates a broad-spectrum economy
where marine, lacustrine and terrestrial habitats
were utilized. It has been emphasized that boats,
although not preserved in the archaeological record,
were a prerequisite for human colonization of this
environment. Some kind of seagoing vessel, whether
it was a type of logboat or a skin-covered craft of
the umiak type, must have been essential for travel,
transportation and communication (Jaksland, 2001;
Bjerck, 2008; Bang-Andersen, 2012; Glørstad, 2013;
Schmitt 2015). Using the waterways, a catchment
area comprising diverse biological habitats with a
great variety of maritime and lacustrine resources was
available to each settlement within a few days travel
from the coast. The utilization of diverse environments
is also reflected in the faunal remains.
Fish bones are presumed to be severely under-
represented because these fragile remains are suscep-
tible to tremendous taphonomic loss caused by
natural agents and archaeological recovery procedures
(Boethius, 2016). Despite this quantitative bias, fish
remains occur at most of the Middle Mesolithic sites
where bones are preserved, and there is remarkable
species diversity: in all 27 dierent species of fish have
been identified. Apart from a few pike, salmon or trout
bones, all are marine species: cod (Gadus morhua),
ling (Molva molva), saithe (Pollachius virens), haddock
(Melanogrammus aeglefinus), pollock (Pollachius
pollachius) and whiting (Merlangius merlangus)are
the most numerous. In the few cases where the bone
fragments can be reliably quantified, it has been
suggested that seafood made up a significant portion
of the diet ( ˚
Ahrberg, 2007; Boethius, 2016). With the
exception of ling, these are demersal species that live on
or near the seabed. Fishing for ling with long lines in
deep water could have been conducted from the shore
at certain places, but the number and composition
of fish bones also so indicate that boats were used
(˚
Ahrberg 2007). So, all factors combined—the location
of the sites, the occurrence of fishhooks and the faunal
remains—point to the importance of aquatic resources
and surroundings.
Theoretical and methodological framework
One of the outstanding features of human technical
practices lies in the embeddedness of environment,
technology and social life (Ingold, 2000: 196; Hodder,
2011; Lemonnier, 2013). In order to explore the
occurrence of such an interrelationship in prehistory,
the concept of technologie culturelle, will be applied as
a methodological tool. This anthropological approach
was designed to investigate societies by focusing
on the techniques they employ (Lemonnier, 1992;
Coupaye, 2009b). This approach is well suited for
researching how dierent components of a technology
interact and are embedded within everyday activity.
In archaeology, this approach is best known for the
chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoire methodology often applied to lithic
technology. The term chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoire, or ‘operational
sequence’, is defined as ‘the overall process that
leads from a given state of matter to its transformed
state’ (Lemonnier, 2012: 300), and can be applied to
any material. The entanglement of humans, things,
environment and material production can be visualized
as a chain in which fishhooks are focal points.
In this network, the activities related to fishhook
manufacture—that is, procurement, manufacture, use,
maintenance, repair, and discard—are interconnected
processes that highlight relations between humans, their
environment, objects and animals. In the following,
the dierent stages in an operational sequence for the
manufacture of fishhooks will be outlined.
Viewed from such a perspective, it is possible to
gain insight into prehistoric practice. Behind every
process of manufacture there is a variety of cultural
ideas, values and procedures. Finally, by theorizing
these transformations, and considering the context
fishhooks appear in, we can begin to explore prehistoric
relationships and the role of objects in cosmologies.
However, the chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoire approach is not only a
method for studying the hands-on production of tools.
This methodology is part of an overarching approach
to material culture, where techniques are understood
as social products that shape and reproduce society
(Soressi and Geneste, 2011: 336). In opposition to the
functionalist school, from this perspective technology is
considered to be embodied, culturally transmitted, and
a historically formed system of knowledge. Within this
framework, everyday technology relates to the practical
necessities of life, butit does so within social institutions
(Knutsson, 2009: 153–163). The performance of a
given technique can be seen in a set of culturally
shared ideas, as well as a skill involved in a specific
manufacturing process (Lemonnier, 2012: 299). The
skill or tacit knowledge is embodied, that is, acquired
through improvisation and imitation in a practical
setting. Through this way of learning, performing a
technique is made automatic. The embodied, non-
verbal body practices outlined by Marcel Mauss
(2006: 77–96), and underlying Bourdieu’s theory of
practice (2005: 67–79) are socialization processes
simultaneously aecting the body, the person and
the artefact manipulated: ‘ ...daily engagements with
the material world—itself created by sociotechnical
interactions with the environment—also form physical
occasions of re-enactment of social values’ (Coupaye,
2009a: 96).
Through technical actions, communal values,
traditions and memories are transferred between
community members, without being put into words
(Lemonnier, 2013: 13). In an anthropological approach
to cultural technology, the interaction between actors,
matter being acted on, the tools and the gestures can
© 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society. 3
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 00.0
be studied directly by observing people engaging in
technical activities. Detailed observation, aimed at
understanding the operational sequences underlying
the manufacture of objects, can lead to new insights
into the social, economic and ideational context.
However, within archaeology, attention has mainly
focused on quantifiable variables; attributes that reveal
information about technological traditions; choice
and skill; and acquisition of raw material. Thus, these
relationships and the social, ritual and cosmological
aspects involved in the manufacture of objects are
neglected aspects of technologie culturelle within
archaeology.
Technologies are also indispensable in order
to generate, maintain and furnish dierent
types of social relationships. Resulting from
technological transformations, things can encapsulate
representational or ideological components and can
be used to generate sociality. Things acquire meaning
through technological processes and through people’s
engagement with them as finished products (Coupaye,
2009a: 2). Lemonnier (2013) emphasizes how the
manufacture of certain everyday objects may act as a
stage for rendering visible the social relations within a
group. For example, Lemonnier (2013: 45–76) describes
how constructing an eel-trap among the Anga people
of New Guinea is an indivisible blend of technical
acts, non-technical purposes, ritual and myth. The
manufacturing process repeats a mythical incident and
directs attention to in-group relations. As a collective
project, it works to reinforce shared systems of thought
and action and communicate gender symmetry and
asymmetry. The final artefact is imbued with an
ambivalence regarding the representation of women’s
power in Anga society. In this way, the eel traps
function as resonators, or non-verbal communicators:
the processes of creating them collectively bring to
mind and communicate key values and representations
shared by the partakers. This perspective also shows
how technological choices are not necessarily based
exclusively on eectiveness or rationality, as is often
implicitly assumed in Mesolithic archaeology. The
actors presumed to be involved in a technical operation
may also belong to the natural or supernatural domain
(Coupaye, 2009b: 447–448).
Techniques are also fundamentally connected with
wider world-views (White, 1992: 119; Helms, 1993;
Coupaye, 2009a; Warren, 2010: 24). According to
Descola (2000: 3), practice is an organic totality in
which material and conceptual aspects are closely
interwoven. For small-scale hunter-gatherers, cross-
cultural ethnographic evidence attests that hunting and
fishing are not simply economic or food-producing
activities; subsistence, technology, natural environment
and cosmologies are deeply intertwined (Tanner,
1979; Helms, 1993, 1998; Berkes, 1999; Descola,
2013). Cross-cultural anthropology argues for a funda-
mental dierence in the perception of animals and obj-
ects made from animal remains among ingenious
hunter-gatherer societies. Among hunter-gatherers,
animal remains, such as skins and tails, or the hard
parts, in particular horns, teeth and bones, are believed
to have intrinsic power that constitutes an activating
agency. The tangible qualities of the hard parts of
animals are often associated with cosmological realms
and cosmographic environments (Helms, 1998). Thus,
raw material choice may also relate to visual and
tactile qualities, and to the beliefs and cosmology
surrounding certain substances (White, 1992: 109). By
applying these concepts to the making and materiality
of mundane objects such as fishhooks, the social, ritual
and cosmological aspects of fishhook production can
be investigated.
As archaeologists we are confronted with challenges
when inferring meaning from observed practice,
thus human-animal interactions in the Mesolithic
have conventionally been perceived as a one-
way relationship, focusing on human subsistence
and exploitation of animals (for example Rowley-
Conwy, 2000). Prehistoric foragers existed in a unique
historical situation, in a particular natural and social
environment, and their habitus was embodied by
specific mental, physical and practical experiences.
All human cosmologies are culture-specific; however,
as contended by anthropologist Mary Helms (1998:
3–8, 2004), in spite of their apparent complexities and
diversities, the fundamental cosmological constructions
of human society also seem to rest on relatively few
basic, universal premises, where ‘the conceptual
models that inform the populace about the nature
of the cosmos are also animate, personalized, often
anthropomorphized, generative, and relational in
form and content’ (Helms, 1998: 8). Key aspects are
the mythic origins of the universe, the relationship
between human beings and supernatural powers, the
cyclical nature of human life, and the importance of
ancestral connections. Myths of origin related to the
features of the landscape are particularly important,
because they structure the world into a composite
and understandable whole (Helms, 1988: 20–24).
Another universal trait of human societies is the use
of materiality as a means of creating social stability
and power (Glørstad, 2010a: 215; Helms, 1993). In
this way, parallels can be inferred, as general human
principles for expressing sociality through materiality,
rather than being based on direct analogies.
Hunting for raw material
The first step in an operational chain is the pursuit of
suitable raw material. Consequently, the first thread to
be followed is the choice of bone for these implements.
Osseous materials are plastic and provide suitable
raw material for a wide variety of tools. Skilled
workers in both prehistoric and historical periods
carefully chose specific bones for the manufacture
of artefacts, depending on the shape of the desired
4 © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
A. MANSRUD: RITUAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MESOLITHIC FISHHOOK MANUFACTURE
product (Driver, 1984). Accordingly, conscious choices
concerning raw materials made on a number of
levels, and the availability of species, largely influenced
osseous technology. Bone points and compound tools
are key types in well-preserved Middle Mesolithic
bone assemblages, and were important features of
the subsistence technology (Nordqvist, 2000; David,
2003, 2007, ˚
Ahrberg, 2007, David and Kj ¨
allkvist,
forthcoming). As demonstrated by David (2007: 37,
see also Hodgetts and Rahemtulla, 2001), the ungulate
family—roe deer, red deer, elk and auroch—were the
main species targeted for osseous raw materials during
the Mesolithic. Besides ungulates being a source for
meat and marrow, ungulate bone and antler were
key raw materials for the manufacture of fishhooks,
bone points, harpoons, composite tools, and other
implements. For NE Skagerrak, the low number
of ungulate bone fragments within the excavated
assemblages is probably connected to the intensive
exploitation of these bone elements. Bone technology
is partially related to cultural and individual choices,
but the shape and size of bones partly determines the
types of objects that can be made from them: this is
directed by the morphology of the bones (David, 2007:
39). The straightness and cylindrical shape of ungulate
metapodials made them ideal for manufacturing a
number of dierent tools (David, 2007: 38; Olsen,
2007: 175, Andersson, 2012). As emphasized by
zooarchaeologists, the exploitation of aquatic resources
requires the use of specialized fishing equipment. For
the manufacture of Middle Mesolithic fishhooks, this
bone appears to have been preferred (Jonsson, 1996),
although the use of other species and bones cannot
be ruled out. Generally, bones of marine mammals are
rarely used as raw material for tools (see Hodgetts and
Rahemtulla, 2001). The most frequent bone objects
identified in bone assemblages of the Middle Mesolithic
NE Skagerrak region are small fishhooks without a
barb. They are 30 mm long on average, and have a
small notch, rather than a drilled hole, for attaching
the line (Persson, 2014), (Fig. 2, Table 1). Fishhooks
or fishhook d´
ebitage are identified among the faunal
assemblages at nine Middle Mesolithic coastal sites
(Fig. 3, Table 1). Unfortunately, the largest collection,
consisting of 41 fishhooks and fishhook fragments, has
never been released for publication. The only available
information is a table from a preliminary excavation
report (Nordqvist, 2005, appendix 82005).
As suggested by the presence of demersal fish species
identified among the faunal remains: saithe, haddock,
ling, pollock, cod and whiting, both active methods
such as hook and line, or stationary methods such
as traps or nets, may have been employed in the
fisheries. A likely method for catching large quantities
of fish was long-line fishing, where several hooks are
attached to a line ( ˚
Ahrberg, 2007). Such an implement
also requires string, ropes and lines (Fig. 4). Sinew
for making string and lashings can be extracted from
the backbone of ungulates. Such materials are seldom
preserved, but a small piece of a string made of sedge
fibres was found at the Balltorp 2 site (Johansson, 2013:
34). Imprints of twisted cord, probably bast or sinew,
have also been identified in resin (Mannering, 2005:
132). In a recent article, archaeologist Lou Schmitt
(2015: 23–25) proposes another conceivable material
entanglement between boats and ungulates. According
to ethnographic observations, light skin boats can be
created by stretching an ungulate hide over a wooden
frame. The hide can be made waterproof by applying
seal oil. In addition, ungulate hide and skin were
used for making clothes and ungulate teeth were
transformed into ornaments. Thus, the first step of
the chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoire, the manufacture of fishhooks is
fundamentally linked with other activities: the hunting,
skinning and dismemberment of ungulates. Marine
specialization depends on the hunting of ungulates,
which becomes an indispensable resource in order to
obtain the important aquatic staple food (Renouf,
1984; Jonsson, 1995; Hodgetts and Rahemtulla, 2001).
In addition to providing calories, hunting elk and
deer is cited as an important and prestigious activity
(Glørstad, 2010a: 166–167).
Hook production and social relations
Fashioning bone artefacts is a reductive process like
stone knapping, rather than an additive one. Thus
the study of bone debitage is useful for reconstructing
the manufacturing process and an analysis of the
chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoire can be used to define what has been
removed from the original bone. Dierent techniques,
such as cutting or abrasion, will create a specific
pattern of debitage, and some techniques will leave
nothing more than grinding dust or splinters similar
to bones fractured for marrow extraction (David,
2007; Olsen, 2007: 176–177). The next step of the
fishhook chaˆ
ıne op´
eratoire, having selected the raw
material, is processing the metapodial bone to make
blanks that can be further fashioned into several
fishhooks. The fishhooks and the debitage examined
in the present study have been strongly aected by
natural taphonomic processes and human agents. Most
of the remains are burnt and/or heavily weathered,
and in most cases it is not possible to distinguish
all the techniques employed, such as whether burins
or disc knives were used to perform the groove-
and-snap method (Fig. 2) (cf. Bergsvik and David,
2015), or which technique was initially employed for
splitting and dividing the metapodials (David, 2007:
40–41). However, the bone waste from cutting grooves
in the desired shape of the hook results in specific
geometrically shaped bone fragments. This type of
debitage can be distinguished among bone fragments,
and is also discernible among burnt bones (Fig. 3).
For red and roe deer metapodials, the groove-and-snap
method is the most widely used technique for producing
© 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society. 5
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 00.0
Figure 2. Fragments of Middle Mesolithic fishhooks from NE Skagerrak. (Photo: Anja Mansrud [Huseby Klev], Anders
Andersson [Dammen], Per Persson [Prestemoen] original sketches: Anja Mansrud, composition: Per Persson)
Table 1. Middle Mesolithic sites with fishhooks or fishhook-debris
Site Material Reference
Huseby Klev 41 complete and fragmented fishhooks Nordqvist, 2005, Mansrud and Persson, forthcoming.
Dammen 1 complete, 11 fragmented fishhooks,
fishhook debris
˚
Ahrberg, 2007, Mansrud and Persson, forthcoming.
Balltorp Fishhook debris Jonsson, 1996.
Bua V¨
asterg˚
ard Fishhook debris Wigsforss et al., 1983.
Tørkop Fishhook debris Mikkelsen et al., 1999, Mansrud, 2014, Mansrud and
Persson, forthcoming.
Søndre Vardal 3 Shaft of fishhook Mansrud, 2014.
Skutvik˚
asen 3 1 fragmented fishhook, fishhook debris Mansrud, 2014, Ekstrand, 2012.
Prestemoen 1 11 fragmented fishhooks, fishhook debris Persson, 2014, Mansrud and Persson, forthcoming.
Vinterbro 3 Fishhook debris Jaksland, 2001, Mansrud and Persson, forthcoming.
6 © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
A. MANSRUD: RITUAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MESOLITHIC FISHHOOK MANUFACTURE
Figure 3. Debitage from fishhook manufacture. (Sketches: Anja Mansrud; photos: Anders Andersson; composition: Per
Persson)
bone blanks. A flint burin is commonly used for bone
carving (Fig. 5). The shape of the hook is then etched
on to the blank, and a hole is drilled in order to shape
the inner curve. Finally, the fishhook is ground and
polished.
Lithic tools indirectly testify to the importance
of bone processing, too, and show how fishhook
manufacture is also intertwined with the lithic industry.
Sectioned bladelets are commonly found at the Middle
Mesolithic sites, presumably used for bone working
(see articles in Solheim and Damlien, 2013). These
tool types, as well as compound tool technology—that
is, bone-tools with lithic inserts—are associated with
traditions introduced into NE Skagerrak from eastern
Russia and the Baltic around 8300 cal. BC (Knutsson
and Knutsson, 2012; Sørensen et al., 2013; Damlien,
2014, 2016). Bone points and slotted bone points
have been identified at Huseby Klev and Dammen in
© 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society. 7
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 00.0
Figure 4. Replica of Mesolithic fishhook made by Morten
Kutschera. The fishhook is made from a red deer metapodial
and sinew. (Photo: Nicole Brody)
Figure 5. MortenKutscheramakingareplicaofa
Mesolithic fishhook using a flint burin. (Photo: Nicole
Brody)
Bohusl¨
an (Nordqvist, 1999: 248, 2000: 208; ˚
Ahrberg,
2007), but, so far, the only preserved compound tool
in eastern Norway is a tiny fragment of a slotted bone
point with a groove for insets, from the site of Søndre
Vardal (Mansrud, 2013: 72).
Presumably, a substantial amount of time went into
the handling of animal bodies and processing bones
and bone artefacts. Lewis Binford (1978: 269) has
described tool manufacture as a continuum ranging
from expedient to curated. Expedient tools take little
time to make, are simple, and can be used and
discarded on the spot. They are manufactured, used
and discarded according to the needs of the moment.
Curated tools, on the other hand, are formal tools,
technologically sophisticated, and eective for a variety
of tasks. They are manufactured in anticipation of use,
maintained and reused. Bone fishhooks are curated
tools; they are fairly complex and time consuming
to accomplish. Results from experiments show that it
takes an experienced toolmaker 2–3 hours to finish one
hook. For a beginner, it takes 5–6 hours. The loosening
of the hook from the blank and the final polishing
is time consuming and hard on the muscles. In the
experiments referred to, emery paper was used for the
final polishing of the surface of the hook (Andersson,
2012: 29–33), but using a sandstone knife or slab, as was
presumably the case in prehistory (Bergsvik and David,
2015), it might have taken even longer.
I have shown how a number of interrelated
undertakings had to be performed in order to make
fishhooks. These consisted of complex operations such
as hunting to acquire the raw material for bone blanks,
finding and knapping flint for tools to work the bones,
and then the messy labour of slaughter and butchering
the animal bodies. The sinews would also have to be
extracted. Furthermore, fishhook manufacture requires
small, but time-consuming tasks, such as knapping
the flint tools to work the bone blanks, fashioning the
hooks by grooving, cutting, grinding and polishing,
making lines from sinew, lashing and tying the line to
fasten the hook. Then one would have to go fishing, gut
the fish and prepare it for consumption or conservation.
In order to carry out these operations, a number of
agents were required. Gender distribution in task
performance is a ubiquitous characteristic of human
subsistence strategies, frequently communicated by
perissological resonators. In Mesolithic archaeology,
embodied and gendered production has been discussed
in relation to presumably prestigious hunting of
large game such as elks and deer (Conneller, 2004,
2011; Glørstad, 2010a and b), whereas unremarkable
everyday activity such as fishing has received little atten-
tion. Ethnographic accounts of hunter/fisher/gatherers
in coastal communities often report that daily
procurement in the marine environment is performed
dierently by men and women (Bird, 2007: 448–449).
Presumably, the manufacture of fishhooks and other
types of fishing gear was a communal activity, which
demanded the involvement of several individuals,
perhaps even all the members of a household, in order
to carry out all the interrelated tasks. As is the case
with the Angan eel-trap, the time-consuming task of
making fishhooks, and the associated activities such as
deer-hunting, fishing, seafaring and flint procurement,
would render visible the social relations of the group.
Thus, the whole manufacture process fits the definition
of perissological resonators as: ‘Those artefacts that
play a crucial role in social organization, on which
people spend a lot of time and attention, and which
bring them to share ideas and undertake activities
together’ (Lemonnier, 2013: 29, 121; see also Ingold,
2000: 196). The social order saturated in the making
of such objects also makes the technology resistant
to change. There are many ways to design a fishhook;
however, in the Mesolithic societies of NE Skagerrak,
making hooks with notches persisted as a technique
for millennia.
8 © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
A. MANSRUD: RITUAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MESOLITHIC FISHHOOK MANUFACTURE
Ritual technology? Discarding fishhooks
As maintained at the beginning of this paper,
technology, natural environment, practices and beliefs
are fundamentally interrelated, and hunter/fisher/
gatherers stress a social continuity between themselves
and animals. This has considerable impact on peoples’
interaction with living animals, as well as their
engagement with animal materials. Such concepts
are often expressed in the handling and disposal of
animal waste, and faunal material is often involved in
a ritual or socially meaningful act before its disposal,
during a meal or during a hunt (Fogelin and Schier,
2015). Middle Mesolithic material evidence that may
intuitively be interpreted as ritual or symbolic is
generally scarce. Due to problems of preservation,
fishhooks in NE Skagerrak are encountered in two
principal contexts: burnt fragments exclusively, or
bones deposited in middens. Such contexts are usually
interpreted in a functional manner. L ˜
ougas (2006:
75) defines the deposition of faunal material in
three categories: 1) fragmented bone remains found
in settlement areas, interpreted as unintentional
disposal of food waste; 2) osseous raw material for
tool manufacture that can be found at settlements
and in burials; and 3) ritual depositions; animal
remains occurring exclusively in burials. However,
this categorical subdivision does not fit with the
archaeological evidence from the Middle Mesolithic.
Burnt fish bones occur in interments dating to the later
part of the Middle Mesolithic in southern Scandinavia
(Karsten and Knarrstr¨
om, 2003: 77–85). Human
remains, burnt and unburnt, also occur regularly in
middens or refuse layers. At Dammen in Bohusl ¨
an,
cremated human bones were unearthed in a midden,
and interpreted as a burial situated in the waste. A
collection of oyster shells, a large rock crystal, and a
small, complete fishhook from the same layer were
interpreted as burial gifts ( ˚
Ahrberg, 2007: 47–49). This
practice conceivably expresses diverse attitudes toward
skeletal waste during the Middle Mesolithic, and
points to some kind of substantial relationship between
humans, animals and bone objects such as fishhooks.
Moreover, a strict labelling of animal remains does not
fit with the emic view of non-Western societies. Such
purely functional interpretations of faunal deposits at
habitation sites can therefore be questioned. Obviously
there are hygienic and functional motives for cleaning
up and tossing waste, but ethnographic investigations
relating to dierent cultures and geographical regions
reveal that neither food in general, nor animal remains
in particular, are necessarily perceived as waste. Rather,
food and animal remains are entangled in complex
and expressive social and ritual relationships, and
charged with symbolical meaning (Moore, 1986). For
example, the yams cultivated in the sacred gardens
of the Abelam people in New Guinea are used as
food. Simultaneously, a yam is a phallic symbol, an
artefact, a representation, a living being, an ancestor,
an artwork, and a thing of value (Coupaye, 2009b:
433).
The concept of perissological resonance is useful
also for interpreting bone residues, because this
notion implies that ritual action can be embedded
within everyday activity, and this makes it possible to
transcend the ritual/mundane dichotomy. Activities
that involve risk, failure, danger and uncertain
outcomes are prone to become ritualized, and these
rituals often involve associated artefacts (Fogelin and
Schier, 2015). Among modern hunter/fisher/gatherers
in the circumpolar area, bones from game animals are
particularly important and connected to ontological
perceptions. Hunter-gatherer life is full of ritual
and religious acts associated with daily subsistence
activities, especially relating to the killing or capturing
of animals (Watanabe, 1994: 48). In addition to public
and communal rituals, private rituals are indispensable
and obligatory for everyone participating in hunting or
fishing. Such ritual technologies are often conceived as
rites of regeneration, integral to the reproductive cycles
of both animals and humans, and these are expressed
through the dismemberment and deposition of animal
parts (Tanner, 1979: 74; Jordan, 2003a; Jordan, 2003b:
97–135; Grøn et al., 2008). Bengt Nordqvist (2003)
has previously stressed this aspect with regards to
the faunal remains from Middle Mesolithic site of
Balltorp. The zooarchaeological analysis (Jonsson,
1996) indicated that bones remains from marine species
had been burnt, whereas the terrestrial mammals had
been left unburnt. In Nordqvist’s interpretation (2003:
540) the terrestrial and marine species are considered
to be agents of binary environments, which were kept
separate and treated dierently. On the whole, the
NE Skagerrak Middle Mesolithic faunal assemblages
do not exhibit a recurring pattern with regards to
which species are burnt or not. They often contain
both terrestrial and marine species, as well as bone
tools, residue of worked bone, fishhooks and fishhook
debitage. However, some of the bone assemblages may
be interpreted as structured deposits (Wennberg, 2006;
Johansson, 2013), and this aspect is an interesting
thread to be followed.
This author has previously argued that animal
remains were deliberately burnt and deposited
at Middle Mesolithic coastal sites (Mansrud,
forthcoming, see also Johansson, 2013). I related this
practice to a widespread anthropological phenomenon
whereby hearths and fire are perceived as active
agents in cosmological transformations. Cleaning the
camp by burning the bones of prey animals in order
to release their spirit is a common practice among
hunter-gatherers, often referred to as the ‘sending o’
ritual (Watanabe, 1994). These animal ceremonies
are performed in relation to a wide range of dierent
animals, including land mammals, sea mammals
and fish. They may involve sending o all the bone
remains at the end of the season or the year, or at
the time of each catch. Other variants are sending o
© 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society. 9
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 00.0
the season’s first game, sending o reared animals,
sending o a youth’s first game, or disposal of bones
from animals caught the previous season (Watanabe,
1994: 49–61; see also Westerdahl, 2002; 186; Grøn and
Kuznetzov, 2003; Odgaard, 2003, 369). Within such a
framework, seemingly insignificant waste, even small,
burnt fragments of bones or tools can be of interest
precisely because they are burnt, that is, the material
has been exposed to cultural transformations.
A distinctive feature of prehistoric technology is the
manufacture of Middle Mesolithic fishhooks and other
bone tools involved the transformation of once living
beings into artefacts. This particular situation could
have influenced prehistoric peoples’ perception of bone
objects in general (cf. Fowler, 2004: 137; Conneller,
2011) and of fishhooks in particular. Animals and
objects are often perceived as animated by societies
governed by animistic or totemic ontologies (Descola,
2013: 348), and the raw material of artefacts originating
in the bodies of animals may have implications for
how this material was culturally professed (McGhee,
1977; Pearce, 1987). When an object was made from
a material that was once a living animal, perhaps that
animal’s ‘anima’ was retained in the object? Following
from this, could it be suggested that fishhooks were
animated by certain attributes of the ungulates whose
bones were used to make them. If animal remains were
regarded as animated and comprising an activating
agency, perhaps a send-o ceremony, or a similar
type of depositional ritual, was also extended to
artefacts. Fogelin and Schier (2015) argue that the life
histories of objects, in particular patterns of cultural
deposition, are keys to inferring ritual technologies.
Objects undergo transitions during manufacture, use
and discard, and may acquire dierent meanings
throughout their ‘life’. By reassigning Victor Turner’s
(1970) classic model of rites of passage to the life
history of objects, Fogelin and Schier (2015: 3) argue
that objects, in particular artefacts involved in activities
related to the extra-natural world, may pass through
rites of passage during their life cycle. Such rituals may
be visible as patterned deposits, for example in relation
to site abandonment.
Cosmology, creation myths and
representation
Hunting and fishing haunt the mind; they occupy a great
place in the preoccupations of the natives: the myth of the
hunter and the myth of the fisherman are among the most
important myths. Some of the usages and beliefs that get
associated with totemism are in fact stories about hunting
or fishing. The whole of Black Africa lives by the hunter;
the whole of Melanesia conceives of its gods in the form of
sharks. (Mauss, 2006: 120–121)
In these last paragraphs, the threads will be gathered
and we shall return to the starting point, by addressing
the interrelation between materiality, cosmology and
representation. I have contended that an archipelagic
environment was the heart and home of a Middle
Mesolithic coastal community. How did this ‘life
aquatic’ form the social life and world-views of Middle
Mesolithic people? In the introduction to this article,
I emphasized the association between materiality,
techniques and world-views by reiterating the story
of how the demi-God Maui created a fishhook from
a jawbone and raised New Zealand. By this, I do not
mean to propose a link between Maori myths and
the NE Skagerrak coastal communities of 10,000
years ago. However, a universal characteristic of
human societies is to use cosmological explanations
as a way of ‘ordering and organizing what appears
to be a very chaotic world’ (Helms, 1988: 20). As
initially stated, throughout the Middle Mesolithic,
on-going geological processes fashioned a seascape in
continuous transformation, resulting in either land rise
or transgression. Sea-level change is a key topic in the
Mesolithic archaeology of NE Skagerrak, but most
research addresses how settlements were relocated
according to shoreline changes, and how this can be
used for inferring and adjusting chronologies. Little
attention has been directed toward how such changes
were perceived by the people inhabiting the area. This
distinctive aquatic milieu aords certain possibilities;
these natural conditions may have posed constraints
that presuppose some form of suppleness in the social
organization of the human communities. For example,
freedom of movement may have been perceived as a
positive aordance of the seascape (cf. Ingold, 2000:
166) that encouraged an itinerant way of life. The
aquatic environment was mutable and fluctuating, with
both gradual climatic changes and dramatic incidents
influencing wildlife and human settlements. The overall
transformation of the environment was gradual;
however, within this period several natural disasters
occurred, in the form of floods and inundations of
areas that were known to the Middle Mesolithic
communities of NE Skagerrak. The isostatic elevation
known as the Ancylus transgression caused a dramatic
rise in the Baltic sea-level around 8300/8200 cal. BC,
reaching up to the southern part of Bohusl¨
an. In
this region, the land rise was less pronounced, and
the area experienced land rise, periodic flooding and
transgressions (Jonsson, 1995; Nordqvist, 2000). In
regions aected by transgressions, the settlements
would become inundated or eradicated by the
waves. Large landmasses in southern Scandinavia
were submerged following the sea-level rise around
8200/8000 cal. BC. These circumstances implied that
a long-lasting interaction with continental south
Scandinavian Early Mesolithic groups was temporarily
breached. In the northern part of Bohusl¨
an, and
the Oslofjord, the continuous land rise implied that
former living spaces and fishing grounds would slowly
end up further away from the shore. These processes
could have been experienced phenomenologically
as a disappearing sea. The inland areas were also
10 © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
A. MANSRUD: RITUAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MESOLITHIC FISHHOOK MANUFACTURE
Figure 6. Rock painting from Tumlehed in Bohusl¨
an, Western Sweden. (With permission, Nash, 2002: 180, fig. 9.2)
aected by flooding because of the melting ice,
especially in the first half of the Boreal chronozone
(Boaz, 1998: 330; Persson, 2010: 12–14). Around 8200
BC, the great ice lake Nedre Gl ˚
amsjøinHedmark
ruptured.
Environmental changes presumably also aected
human perception of their milieu and influenced their
world view (Larsson, 2003; Nimura, 2013). Dramatic
events may have been reiterated and converted into
the cultural memory, thus becoming a part of the
history of the landscape (cf. Nimura, 2013: 25).
Concerning southern Scandinavia, where sea-levels
fluctuated and people regularly experienced floods
and transgressions, Lars Larsson (2003: 223) proposes
that burials and decorated objects were deliberately
placed in or near the water; these acts are interpreted
as measures to negotiate the forces of nature, in
order to balance environmental instability (see also
Strassburg, 2000; Bergsvik, 2009). Rock art may
be approached in a similar fashion (Larsson, 2003;
Vieira, 2010; Nimura, 2013). Rock paintings and
carvings are generally dicult to date, and the majority
of rock-art sites in eastern Norway are dated by
shoreline displacement to the Late Mesolithic (6300–
4000 cal. BC) (Mikkelsen, 1977; Fuglestvedt, 2008).
However, there are also rock-art sites within the NE
Skagerrak area, which are presumed to be older.
The Tumlehed image (Fig. 6) is tentatively dated
by shoreline displacement to the Middle Mesolithic
(Andersson et al. 1988, 7; Nordqvist, 2003: 536). The
semi-naturalistic animal representations at Medbo in
Bohusl¨
an (Fig. 7) also resemble the Late Mesolithic
hunting art (cf. Fuglestvedt, 2008), however the dating
is uncertain, and some of the figures may have been
added at a later date (Nash, 2002: 180–181). Although
dating is uncertain, I believe these expressions illustrate
a general point: namely that rock art may serve as multi-
vocal symbols that refer to world-views.
Rock-art representations must be regarded as models
of reality, that is, they are expressions of culture, and
represent mediations between nature and mind that
are linked to cultural and cosmological developments
in the Mesolithic people’s symbolic environment
(Fuglestvedt, 2010a, 2011, 2012; Glørstad 2010a,
ch. 7). As emphasized in the above quotation by Marcel
Mauss, animals are central to hunter/fisher myths,
narratives and cosmologies. In mobile hunter-gatherer
societies, myths of origins almost exclusively assert
animals as the principal ‘Others’ and cosmological
originators (Helms, 2004). Cosmology refers to
culture’s orientation in space and time as conceived
in words, images and rituals. Hence, iconography can
be regarded as a form of materialized cosmology.
Such narratives can be analysed by addressing how
human perception of the environment is expressed
(Rappengl¨
uck, 2009). The concept of cosmovision
refers to how ideas of structure (cosmology), origin
and development (cosmogony), and the relation to
human life within a specific ecosystem, are shared
and demonstrated by the members of a certain social
© 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society. 11
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 00.0
Figure 7. Rock painting from Medbo in Bohusl¨
an, Western Sweden. (With permission, Nash, 2002: 186, fig. 9.6)
group. In this way, images can be important aspects
of this structuring process. Cosmovisions are defined
by (Rappengl¨
uck, 2009: 107) as ‘holistic, multi-layered
models of evolving human ecosystems, which make
processes more understandable and domesticate the
world using symbolic language’. These images relate
the mode of subsistence with cognitive and practical
settings, and allow the members of a community to
order and interpret their life worlds, thus creating a
structured and stabilized habitat. Thus, iconography
such as rock art may provide insight into archaic
cosmovisions, and has been put forward as a unique
source for grasping how prehistoric people envisioned
their own world (Nash and Chippindale, 2002: 1).
Several researchers have emphasized the association
between natural features and rock art as the culturally
expressed interplay between the micro- and macro-
landscape of hunter-gatherers, whereby the immediate
(macro)-landscape is internalized (Nash, 2002: 185;
Gjerde, 2010: 419–420). Mesolithic rock carvings
are often placed near major waterways (rivers or
fjords) or at coastal locations, in places that favour
communication by boat (Helskog, 1999; Gjerde,
2010: 413; Glørstad, 2010a: 223–227). The zone
where sea and land conjoin is often perceived as a
liminal space, charged with procreative power (Helms,
1988: 25–26; Westerdahl, 2005: 11). The waterways
presumably functioned as geographical anchor points:
sea, lakes and rivers integrated the Mesolithic world;
however, water may have been a symbolic medium for
communicating with spirits and ancestors.
Location close to water also applies to the rock
painting from Tumlehed (Fig. 6). The Tumlehed image
is made of red paint, stained on to a vertical rock
surface. Today, the painting is located on top of a
mountain facing a former strait. When the painting
was executed, it was situated far from land, out in
the sea. The motif is interpreted as a deer or elk with
large antlers that seem to be wrapped in a net. Around
the deer there are boats, and undulating geometrical
forms, as well as zoomorphic figures, interpreted as
either fish or whales (Andersson et al., 1988: 7; Nash,
2002; Nordqvist, 2003: 536; Lahelma, 2007: 118). A
similar motif appears on a Late Mesolithic rock carving
in the Altafjord of northern Norway. The Altafjord
carving shows people line fishing from a boat. A fish,
presumably a halibut, is attached to the line, and beside
the fish is an elk (Gjerde, 2010: 252, figure 152).1
The connection between boats and ungulates is also
emphasized on a carving from Slettnes, where the boats
are depicted with elk heads (St¨
olting, 1997: 20, see also
Lahelma 2007).
Fishhooks as such are not present in the Tumlehed
rock painting, but a large fishhook is clearly visible
at the Medbo panel in Bohusl¨
an (Fig. 7). The
hook is associated with a fish or marine mammal,
and several ungulates, most probably elk (Nash
2002: 186).2Earlier interpretations of the Tumlehed
rock painting have stressed the division of the
terrestrial and marine figures as representing a spatial
dichotomy of binary oppositions between dry and
wet, land and sea (Nash, 2002: 189, Nordqvist, 2003:
538). Displaying maritime and terrestrial aspects
in a single scene could alternatively allude to the
fundamental interdependence between ungulates
and the marine resources. As previously stated, the
12 © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2017 The Nautical Archaeology Society.
A. MANSRUD: RITUAL AND COSMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MESOLITHIC FISHHOOK MANUFACTURE
marine specialization of the Middle Mesolithic foragers
fundamentally depended on hunting ungulates, which
provided raw material for boats and fishing gear. As
stated in the introduction, a common theme in the
origin myths among coastal cultures encompasses
the idea of how the land itself materialized from a
cosmic ocean through the agency of an intermediary
actor (Descola, 2013: 350; Rappengl¨
uck, 2014:
298). Following this thread, a speculative alternative
interpretation could be that the deer symbolizes the
terrestrial landscape emerging from the sea by aid
of a transitional agent: a fishing-net. Thus, in the
following, it is suggested that one of the layers of
meaning attached to bone fishhooks is their value as
liminal agents (Westerdahl, 2005, 2006).
The auent seascape represented the vital basis
for life, by providing sustenance and means for
transportation. However, for societies living o
hunting and yields from the sea, the forces of nature
are ever present, and nature is often conceived
simultaneously as a divine force and a chaotic power.
Bad weather and wind is a constant threat to seafaring
or river transport, and a proficient utilization of the
aquatic environment requires appropriate knowledge
and suitable equipment. It is equally important to
have means to minimize danger caused by a sudden
storm or empty nets. Therefore, hunting and fishing is
commonly surrounded by protection rituals (Solheim,
1940; Tanner, 1979: 12, 27; Westerdahl, 2005: 2). As
proposed by Westerdahl (2005, 2006), the concept of
liminal agency is a core theme in the protection rituals
of people making a living from the sea. The beach,
being an intermediary zone between sea and land, is
frequently perceived as an ambiguous place (Helms,
1988: 24–25; see also Van der Noort, 2012: 24–26).
Liminal agents are objects or materials functioning
as ‘boundary crossers’, mediating between opposite
elements such as the sea and land. For example, beings
or substances of terrestrial origin are often used as
intermediaries, objects used to stall the dangers of the
sea (Westerdahl, 2005: 7–8). The elk is often considered
a liminal being; it is a terrestrial animal but it can
dive, swim over vast distances, and often feeds on
water plants (Sæter, 1990: 116; Westerdahl, 2005: 13;
Lahelma, 2007: 127). I have argued that the fishhook
manufacture was intertwined with the hunting of elk
and other ungulates and the transformation of animals
into artefacts. I have interpreted fishhooks as animated
objects. These tools—seemingly inconspicuous, but
essential to secure access to vital aquatic staple food
from the cosmographic space below the surface
of the water—may have been conceived as liminal
agents. Large ungulates, in particular elk, are the most
frequently portrayed animals on Mesolithic rock art.
This implies that ungulates played an essential part
on many levels besides subsistence. Glørstad (2010:
234) interprets the elk carvings as mythical expressions
of the original creator beings: the ancestors appear
in the cosmology in the shape of elk. This aspect
would make fishhooks particularly valuable as liminal
agents in mediating the dangers and insecurities of an
unpredictable ‘life aquatic’.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Anne Lene Melheim for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript, to Morten Kutschera, Anders
Andersson and Per Persson for providing maps and illustrations and Barry Kavanagh for revising my language. Also, I wish to
thank my colleagues at FUN, in particular Carine Eymundsson, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, for partaking
in discussions that greatly assisted the research, although they may not agree with all of the interpretations provided in this paper.
Notes
1. The figure was originally interpreted as an elk; however, in a later publication Knut Helskog (2014: 85, fig 77) interprets it as
abear.
2. Nash (2002: 186) interprets these figures as reindeer.
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