From hunter to farmer in Northern Europe: Migration and adaptation during the Neolithic and Bronze Age

This thesis focuses on a diachronic investigation of the agrarian expansions in Scandinavia from the early 4th millennium to the end of the 1st millennium BC, and presents a wide range of new data from stray finds and 14C dates of domesticated animals, as well gathering previously published data relating to agrarian evidence and material culture. Its temporal and geographical range provides the basis for a discussion of some of the overall questions associated with when, how and why these expansions of agrarian societies occurred in Scandinavia. It is argued that agriculture is a very complex technology, which takes a long time to learn, thus making it very difficult for agrarian practices to spread as an idea. Instead, based on a detailed survey of primary agrarian evidence and secondary evidence of material culture, it is suggested that the expansions of agrarian practices in Scandinavia are associated with the migration of people. These people had the right competences and the ability to teach the indigenous population about agriculture by establishing communities of practice, thus supporting the theory of integrationism. The engagement in these communities of practice would have changed the identity and material culture of the immigrating farmers, as well as the indigenous hunter-gatherers, thus creating new agrarian societies, which were interconnected with each other in a larger European network.