Recent addition:

March 20 2006: The excavations in Skjaervika are postponed until 2007.

February 22 2006: Map of structures in Skjaervika and their dates published.

February 21 2006: Fieldwork for excavations in Skjærvika 2006 announced. Improved navigation adnn more information about the drawings of artifacts.

November 22 2005: Updated information about Skjaervika.

September 7th 2005: Published a folder and a poster presented at Meso2005 in Belfast.

August 9th 2005: The latest results and pictures from the excavations in Skjaervika.

July 5th 2005: New information concerning the upcoming excavations in Skjaervika.

June 01 2005: The article The Melkøya project: maritime hunter-fisher island settlements and the use of space through 11 000 years on Melkøya, Arctic Norway published in Antiquity Vol 79 No 304 online.

May 11 2005: Published a poster presented at the 22nd Nordic Archaeology Conference, University of Oulu, August 18th-23rd, 2004.

May 03 2005: Preliminary interpretation of the locality Kilden, based on distributions.
Lecture in Norwegian, and a presentation.

March 09 2005: Virtual reality model of Sundfjaera. Navigate through past landscapes.
Can you identify the location of the dwellings?
Click here


New exhibition in Hammerfest

If you travel to the world's northernmost city, Hammerfest, seize the opportunity to visit the recently opened exhibition "Arctic Stone Age"at The Museum of Reconstruction for Finnmark and Nord-Troms. Tools found at Slettnes and Melkoya are on display here, and you can also see photos from the excavations at Melkoya.


Articles are produced and published.

The archaeological finds have been marked and packed for storage.

Distribution maps are made and analyzed.

Field drawings are digitized and combined with distribution maps.

Production of terrain models that simulate the past landscape.

Excavation report is due to be published.

A new Stone Age exhibition based on the material from the Melkoyproject is under development at the Museum of Tromsø. Planned opening is autumn 2006.


Issue of Ottar in sale.

The issue is dedicated to the Melkoyproject and the articles discuss different theoretical and methodological approaches to excavation of stone age remains at Melkoya. The magazine is only published in Norwegian.

CONTENTS:
Innledning: Anders Hesjedal og Anja Roth Niemi
De arkeologiske undersøkelsene på Melkøya: Anders Hesjedal
Som man graver, finner man!: Morten Ramstad
Melkøya i rom og tid: Anja Roth Niemi
Melkøya – ei øy i stadig forandring, med og uten menneskets hjelp: Christin Jensen og Ellen Elverland
Miljøarkeologi i nordligste Skandinavia: Johan Linderholm
Tyggis fra steinalderen: Camilla Celine Nordby
De levende døde. Ravfunn og dødekult på Melkøya i steinalderen: Morten Ramstad

The issue can be ordered from Tromsø Museum.


The amber from Sundfjaera at Melkoya have been chenically analysed to determine their origin. The chemical "fingerprint" of the pearls established them to be made of baltic amber.
The largest pearl have decorations in the shape of parallell lines of points. Maybe they are supposed to look like tracks of birds walking?

More about the pearls.

We now have recieved the results from the laboratory at New Zealand. All in all we have dated 52 samples of charcoal fromthe season of 2001 and 103 from the season of 2002. In addition are the datings done in connection with the analysis of the pollensamples from bogs around the sites.

More about the datings.

Many samples of soil are collected from Sundfjaera, Kilden and Normannsvika for analysis of phpsphate values. Phosphate is an indication of the disposing of organic material, and can give us information about where garbage was disposed, or even where the dead were buried. The phosphates are now analysed in Sweden.

More about phosphates.

 


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Tromsoe Museum-Universitetsmuseet, N-9037 Tromsoe, Norway
Telephone +47 77 64 50 00 Fax +47 77 64 55 20
Updated by Anja Roth Niemi March 20 2006
Editor: Stephen Wickler, Dept. of Archaeology, Tromsoe Museum