ABSTRACT
Many of the themes already discussed will be considered again here with reference to the introduction of a farming mode of production into southern Scandinavia (Denmark and the provinces of Scania and Blekinge in Sweden-northern Scandinavia has a quite separate history of development [Nygaard 1989]). Here, however, there is a substantially greater body of evidence for the Late Mesolithic, although there are clear regional biases in coverage. This far larger database is unquestionably a product of the much longer interest in the Mesolithic. In the 1840s a vigorous debate began among archaeologists concerning the mounds of shells found on the Danish coast (S.H.Andersen 1987a): had they had been formed by natural or cultural factors? The special committee set up to examine the question quickly concluded that they were products of human action, and they were termed ‘kitchen middens’. The potential of these sites for an integrated study of economy and society led to the excavation of a major example at Ertebølle in northern Jutland, which produced the definition of the Ertebølle culture, characterised by transverse arrowheads, flake axes, thick-walled pots and a gathering-hunting subsistence base (Madsen et al. 1900).
