Changing Identity in a Changing World: Current Studies on the Stone Age Around 4000 Bce

From 2013-2022 the largest Stone Age excavation ever undertaken in Denmark, uncovered an entire fjord landscape beneath marine sediments at Rødbyhavn on the island of Lolland. Based on the excavations, Museum Lolland-Falster, in collaboration with Aarhus University and the Danish National Museum, organised an international conference on the topic of "LOST 2022 – Changing Identity in a Changing World" on 16 and 17 June 2022 to discuss the time around 4000 BCE in Denmark and beyond from different angles. This book summarizes the conference and presents its main outcomes. It also gives an overview of the current state of research within the Femern project and sets them into context with the wider area. By including contributions from the Netherlands to Finland, the central position of Lolland as a corridor in the Stone Age is highlighted and discussed. The topics covered in this book deal with technological change, archaeological analyses of identity, aspects of landscape interaction and perception in the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic. This book is aimed at specialists, students and the interested public alike, as it provides the first complete overview of the excavations of the Femern project and places them in context. At the same time, it serves as a basis for further studies on the material and highlights the challenges and possibilities of the archaeological record from the period around 4000 BCE.

Daniel Gross is curator and research coordinator at Museum Lolland-Falster. His main field of work are wetland archaeology and Stone Age archaeology with a particular interest in human-environment interactions. In his projects he deals with artefact studies, landscape and settlement archaeology and socio-economic change through bridging humanistic and natural scientific approaches. Daniel studied Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology at the University of Hamburg and was awarded a PhD at Kiel University in 2014. He worked at the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology and in the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 “Scales of Transformation” in Germany before moving to Museum Lolland-Falster, Denmark, in 2021. Key publications Gross, D., 2017. Welt und Umwelt frühmesolithischer Jäger und Sammler. Mensch-Umwelt-Interaktion im Frühholozän in der nordmitteleuropäischen Tiefebene, Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum 8. Kiel: Ludwig. Gross, D., Lübke, H., Meadows, J., Jantzen, D. (eds.) 2019. Working at the sharp end: from bone and antler to Early Mesolithic life in Northern Europe. Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum 10. Kiel/Hamburg: Wachholtz. Gross, D., Piezonka, H., Corradini, E., Schmölcke, U., Zanon, M., Dörfler, W., Dreibrodt, S., Feeser, I., Krüger, S., Lübke, H., Panning, D., Wilken, D. 2019. Adaptations and transformations of hunter-gatherers in forest environments: New archaeological and anthropological insights. The Holocene 29, 1531-1544. DOI: 10.1177/0959683619857231 Schmölcke, U., Gross, D., Nikulina, E. 2017. Bears and Beavers – The Browns in daily life and spiritual world, in: Eriksen, B.V., Abegg-Wigg, A., Bleile, R., Ickerodt, U. (eds.). Interaktion Ohne Grenzen. Beispiele Archäologischer Forschungen Am Beginn Des 21. Jahrhunderts. Interaction without Borders. Exemplary Archaeological Research at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Kiel/Hamburg: Wachholtz, 901-917. Sørensen, M., Lübke, H., Gross, D. 2018. The Early Mesolithic in Southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany, in: Milner, N., Conneller, C., Taylor, B. (eds.). Star Carr, Volume 1: A Persistent Place in a Changing World. York: White Rose University Press, 305-329.

Mikael Rothstein is Associate Professor of comparative religion at the University of Southern Denmark. He also holds the title of Visiting Professor at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania and Research Professor at Museum Lolland-Falster. His research primarily deals with issues of new religions, religion in the Hellenistic-Roman ages, religion among hunter-gatherers and other indigenous peoples, and religion in the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Mikael studied comparative religion at the university of Copenhagen, where he also finished his PhD in 1993. After many years as tenured there, he became Associate Professor at University of Southern Denmark in 2013. Key publications O’Meara, C., Burenhult, N., Rothstein, M., Sercombe, P. 2018. Representing space and place: hunter-gatherer perspectives. Hunter Gatherer Research 4/3, 287-309. DOI: 10.3828/hgr.2018.19 O’Meara, C., Burenhult, N., Rothstein, M., Sercombe, P. (eds.) 2018. Special issue: Hunter Gatherer Representations of Space and Place. Hunter Gatherer Research 4/3. Rothstein, M. 2020. Being lost: Landscape, troubling spirits and ritual strategies among the Eastern Penan. Hunter Gatherer Research 4/3, 355-368. DOI: 10.3828/hgr.2018.22 Rothstein, M. 2020. The Decline and Resilience of Eastern Penan Monsters, in: Musharbash, Y. and Presterudstuen, G. (eds.). Monster Anthropology. Ethnographic Explorations of Transforming Social Worlds Through Monsters. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 75-87. Rothstein, M. 2018. Arkæologi, ‘etnografisk analogi’, klassisk lingvistik, deltagerobservation, Action-kamera og sattelitbaseret GPS: De nomadiske jæger-samleres relative fravær i religionshistorisk forskning. CHAOS: Skandinavisk tidsskrift for religionshistoriske studier 70, 109-120. Rothstein, M. 2016. Regnskovens religion. Forestillinger og ritualer blandt Borneos sidste jæger-samlere. En religionshistorisk monografi. København: U Press Larsson, J., Burenhult, N., Kruspe, N., Purves, R.S., Rothstein, M., Sercombe, P. 2021. Integrating behavioral and geospatial data on the timeline: towards new dimensions of analysis. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 24/1, 1-13. DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2020.1763705