LUND, SWEDEN—According to a Phys.org report, Mikael Fauvelle of Lund University and his colleagues suggest that Scandinavia’s hunter-gatherers belonging to what is known as the Pitted Ware Culture (PWC) traveled in boats made with animal skins. As farming spread throughout Europe, the people of the PWC continued to rely on deep-water fish and seals, whose bones have been found at PWC sites. A few dugout canoes have been found, but they were discovered in inland lakes and bogs, and were too small to have been suitable for crossing open sea, Fauvelle explained. Possible boat frames to hold animal skins have been unearthed in Germany and Sweden, however, and scrapers and awls for making large holes have been recovered at PWC sites, he added. Skin boats may also be depicted in PWC rock art in northern Scandinavia showing fishing, whaling, and seal hunting. Fauvelle said that the images resemble Umiak skin boats used by the Inuit, and often show the lower half of the bodies of people and animals in the boats. The researchers note that when backlit, the skins of Umiak boats can become semi-translucent. They think the rock art may depict similar semi-translucent vessels. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Journal of Maritime Archaeology. To read about evidence of population changes in Mesolithic and Neolithic Scandinavia, go to “Ancient DNA Revolution: Danish Turnovers.”

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Source: archaeology.org