ABSTRACT
For the most of the past 100,000 years, the Scandinavian peninsula was covered by a 1,000 metre thick layer of inland ice. As the ice sheet gradually melted (13,000 BC), people from the east and south settled the uncovered land . .Aichaeological data show that reindeer herders have lived on the entire peninsula at different times (Champion et al., 1984). Human settlements dating from 8.000BC have been found on the .Aictic coast. These early settlers may have been the ancestors of the reindeer-herding Sami people. Reindeer husbandry eventually conflicted with agricultural fonns of life that, in time. predominated among the new settlers (Beach, 1981). Gradually, the Sami were displaced. pushed to the mountainous regions of the northwest. To this day. Sami villages still exist as far south as the province of Dalarna in mid-Sweden. Swedish colonisation of Sami territory to the north is still occurring (Jahreskog, 1988).
