Stunner (Stone Age site)
Encyclopedia
Stunner was a Stone Age
settlement located in Ski
, in Akershus
County, Norway
.
The settlement was first discovered in 1928 when a farmer, Johannes Mikkelsen harvested potatoes. Mikkelsen was a knowledgeable man and recognized the flint tools. More than 700 pieces of flint and other stone artifacts has been found at the site.
The flint
finds from the Stone Age
settlement at Stunner reveal that the site was populated around 11000 years ago. Pioneer settlers from the Ahrensburg culture
tracked from the submerged North Sea
continent
and European mainland. Their primary prey was reindeer
. At Stunner however, marine resources have been significant. The landscape the settlers encountered was dramatically different to the present. The sea level was 160 m higher, and the fauna
and flora
resembled the arctic
tundra
and coastline.
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
settlement located in Ski
Ski, Norway
is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Follo. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Ski. Ski was separated from the municipality of Kråkstad on 1 July 1931 to form a separate municipality...
, in Akershus
Akershus
- Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum...
County, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
.
The settlement was first discovered in 1928 when a farmer, Johannes Mikkelsen harvested potatoes. Mikkelsen was a knowledgeable man and recognized the flint tools. More than 700 pieces of flint and other stone artifacts has been found at the site.
The flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
finds from the Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
settlement at Stunner reveal that the site was populated around 11000 years ago. Pioneer settlers from the Ahrensburg culture
Ahrensburg culture
The Ahrensburg culture was a late Upper Paleolithic culture during the Younger Dryas, the last spell of cold at the end of the Weichsel glaciation. The culture is named after village of Ahrensburg, northeast of Hamburg in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein where wooden arrow shafts and clubs...
tracked from the submerged North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
and European mainland. Their primary prey was reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
. At Stunner however, marine resources have been significant. The landscape the settlers encountered was dramatically different to the present. The sea level was 160 m higher, and the fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
and flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
resembled the arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
tundra
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
and coastline.