Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the chronology of Iron Age sealing sites on the Swedish north Bothnian coast. This material is interpreted as indigenous (Saami) in origin. Forty-four radiocarbon dates demonstrate that these sites were used from the first centuries A.D. until A.D. 1279. Bothnian settlement may have also been based on reciprocal and “punctuated” settlement cycles, a strategy that took advantage of decadal peaks in terrestrial and maritime resources, and facilitated sedentism before agrarianism.

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