Gressbakkenhaus

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The so-called Gressbakkenhäuser ( German  grass hill houses - Norwegian Gressbakken husen ) are a form of residential buildings that were built in the Younger Stone Age (until 1800 BC) in Norway , near the coast from the island of Sørøy in western Norway, over the residential areas on the Varangerfjord up to the Kola Peninsula in Russia .

Gressbakkenhäuser were semi-underground, rectangular structures with a living space of up to 50 square meters. They had at least two walled fireplaces along the longitudinal axis and up to four entrances in each wall, which were often associated with small porches. This multitude of entrances distinguishes Gressbakkenhäuser from other Stone Age residential buildings. There are piles of rubbish in front of the entrance and / or at the back. The houses are very different in size, shape, depth, as well as in the number of fireplaces, the entrances and the kitchen garbage heap . The residents were maritime hunters and gatherers who specialized in fish, marine mammals, reindeer and birds. Human bones have been found in the walls and under the floors of some Gressbakken houses.

In 1978 a house was excavated in Nyelv Nedre Vest on the Varangerfjord. It used to be assumed that the houses were used in the course of seasonal movements. Analysis by Nyelv Nedre Vest shows year-round usage and re-examination of the data from other sites indicates a sedentary or semi-sedentary population.

literature

  • Ericka Engelstad: The Late Stone Age of Arctic Norway: A Review. Arctic Archeology 22 (1) 1985, pp. 79-96.
  • Lisa Maye Hodgetts: Subsistence diversity in the Younger Stone Age landscape of Varangerfjord, northern Norway . Antiquity 84 (323) 2010, pp. 41-54.
  • Lisa Maye Hodgetts, Farid Rahemtulla: Land and sea: use of terrestrial mammal bones in coastal hunter-gatherer communities . Antiquity 75 2001, pp. 56-62.

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