Marine Ventures. Comparative perspectives on the dynamics of human approaches to the seascapes of Tierra del Fuego and Norway.

Marine Ventures explores the interesting similarities and differences between the southern and northern outskirts of the world, in the span between early Stone Age in Scandinavia and the foraging communities in Patagonia, with special emphasis on Tierra del Fuego, where the project is doing archaeological research in cooperation with Argentinian colleagues. The long Norwegian coast, created by ice, ideal for marine foraging. The broad belts where the sea and the land are woven into each other are among the most productive coasts in the world. The skerry-fiord coasts were important in the development of marine foraging, in Scandinavia and elsewhere. This is where we find the oldest traces of this lifestyle, which date more than 11 000 years back. These people originate from groups of hunters who followed the herds of caribou, or wild reindeer, across the plains of North Europe during the end of the Ice Age. Maybe sealing was the start of the foraging at sea. But efficient sealing requires seaworthy boats, during the hunt itself and for getting to the best sealing sites in the skerries. We have focused on Patagonia, the cone-shaped area shared by Chile and Argentina farthest south in Latin America. Along the Pacific coast are the Andes, where there was a thick cover of ice during the Ice Ages. This seascape has much in common with Scandinavia. However, the South-American Atlantic coast that was out of the glaciers? reach was of another nature: here, the ocean would hammer away at the unprotected coast, cliffs and the long shallow beaches with perpetual breakers. Good landing conditions are more or less non-existent. The human societies in eastern and western Patagonia developed entirely different lifestyles. On the wide plains facing the unsheltered Atlantic shores, there were hunting communities who never did any foraging at sea. Along the skerries to the west were ?the canoe people?, who spent almost all their time on board boats or on the shore. The foraging communities in Patagonia developed practically without interference from the outside world until the 16th century, and are well documented by photographs and drawings as well as written descriptions. In Norway, the forager economy was replaced by agriculture many thousands of years ago, and archaeological records are the only source to Stone Age societies. Archaeological findings from the two areas are also of different: in Latin America, there have been many excavations of shell middens with very good conditions for preserving bones, as opposed to the Norwegian Stone Age settlements, where preserved organic material is rare.

Marine Ventures involves researchers from CADIC-CONICET in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego (Ernesto L. Piana, Atilio Fransisco J. Zangrando), and two PhD scholars (Heidi Mjelva Breivik and Silje Fretheim) and two researchers (Birgitte Skar and Hein B. Bjerck) f rom NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet in Trondheim. The project will take advantage of comparisons of the manifold of similarities and differences between Norway and Patagonia, and aims to study the dynamics and development of two separate approaches to marine based subsistence strategies. This involves economical strategies, settlement systems, dwellings, logistics and technology - boats and their implications to lifestyles in particular. The project also include comparisons of cultural heritage management strateg ies and practise in regard to international conventions between the countries. The project is organised in four WPs: WP1 Colonizing seascapes (Bjerck, Breivik, Piana, Zangrando) WP2 In the wake of boats: Settlements and logistics in Early Mesolithic Norw ay and Argentinean Tierra del Fuego (Bjerck, Piana, Zangrando) WP3 Dwellings and settlement structure (Bjerck, Fretheim, Piana, Zangrando) WP4 Heritage management & Practice (Skar, Piana, Zangrando, and MA student from Norway) The project has several met hodological approaches: Norwagian participation CADIC's on-going field work in Canal Beagle Studies of records of earlier investigations in the Canal Beagle Joint field study in Central Norway (excursions, participation in on-going excavations), including partners from Argentina. Apart from high quality scientific publications, the project will constitute an important part of two PhD projects (financed by NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet). An international conference, conference proceedings, and public relations in the form of an exhibition and a TV production are included.