ABSTRACT
Land is a group of islands in the middle of the Baltic Sea, situated in the strait separating central Sweden and southern Finland. The islands were dominated by low bedrock outcrops, hewn smooth by glaciers of the ice age, and shingle, washed by the sea, that covered the islands following the melting of the ice. The distance is equal to the strait that separated land from the closest islands on the Finnish side to the east, and could be traversed by canoe in one day in fair weather. Just like their neighbours in land, the hunter-gatherers of Mlardalen were seal hunters and fishermen, using hunting stations in similar locations in the outer archipelago. The material culture, on the other hand, differed substantially. Pottery was absent in Mlardalen, and whereas the lithic assemblages on land were totally dominated by knapped ryolite, the contemporary sites in Mlardalen were dominated by quartz.
