People in Norway hunted whales 5,000 years ago

Researchers recently examined some of the earliest known evidence of whaling: 5,000-year-old harpoons and whale bones with cut marks on the coast of Brazil.

Evidence from Scandinavia suggests that whaling there may be just as ancient, according to Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen. He is senior curator at the Stavanger Maritime Museum. 

Nielsen and colleagues have conducted archaeological investigations at Jortveit farm in southern Norway, where they found evidence of tuna and whale hunting dating from 3500 to 2500 BCE.

It is one of many examples of how hunter-gatherers in Norway made use of the sea. 

Not just big game 

"For a long time, people believed that hunter-gatherers throughout history had primarily depended on big game," says Nielsen.

This belief stems from research on modern hunter-gatherers, who over the centuries have been pushed into marginal areas, according to Nielsen.

But after the end of the Ice Age, a growing population began adapting to life along the coast, where fish became an important food source. 

"We now know that large hunter-gatherer populations very often adapted to marine resources, whereas reliance on big game is actually a characteristic of small hunter-gatherer populations," he says.

Coastal settlements 

After the last Ice Age, hunter-gatherers spread across larger territories around the world, including in Europe, Nielsen explains.

The oldest Stone Age settlements in Norway have been found in the Oslofjord area and are dated to around 11,500 years ago. 

"People hunted big game and followed the animals as they moved after the Ice Age," says Nielsen.

Researchers see the same pattern in Western Norway. According to Nielsen, some of the oldest dates come from mountain areas in Ryfylke.

"People travelled by boat along the coast, yet continued seeking out large game. This pattern is consistent throughout the first centuries and was a tradition they brought with them from the culture of Northern Europe at the end of the Ice Age," he says.

Later migrations from the east introduced groups that also focused on hunting large animals. During the Early Stone Age, beginning around 8000 BCE, archaeologists see that these groups gradually became more settled and began making greater use of marine resources, although they still continued to hunt wild animals.

"Large quantities of fish bones have been found at settlements with good preservation conditions. We also find evidence that people made small harpoons and fishhooks," he says.

In Norway, people caught fish using lines, hooks, and sinkers.

Mounds of oyster shells

The whale bones in the Brazilian study were found in man-made mounds of shells and fish bones called sambaquis. 

Denmark has similar sites known as shell middens. These are heaps of oyster and shellfish waste. They originate from the Ertebølle culture, which was widespread in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany from 5200 to 4000 BCE.

"We have a few preserved shell middens around the Oslofjord, and there may also be a few preserved on Jæren, where they are enclosed in sand," says Nielsen.

Several harpoons made from whale bone and antler have been found at settlements belonging to the Ertebølle culture. These tools were likely used to hunt seals and possibly whales.

The culture also took advantage of the tides to catch fish. 

"In many places in Denmark during the Ertebølle period, people built long fences extending out into the sea in a V-shape. They can be 100 metres long and are very impressive; many of them are well preserved," he says.

The fences had a collection device at the end, such as a pit or fish trap. When the tide receded, the fish became trapped.

Nets and the hunting of small whales

By the New Stone Age (4000 to 1700 BCE), archaeological evidence shows that people had begun using nets to catch fish.

"We can also see that they started targeting larger marine mammals, including dolphins and small whales," says Nielsen.

In the 1930s, an orca jaw with cut marks and tuna vertebrae were discovered during the drainage of a bog at Jortveit farm in southern Norway. Fishhooks and harpoons used by people between 3500 and 2500 BCE were also found.

Between 2018 and 2024, Nielsen and his colleagues carried out new archaeological investigations at the site. The researchers mapped the bog's stratigraphy – sediment layers – and used ground-penetrating radar. 

"The sediments in the bog were deposited in saltwater. We have uncovered hundreds of bones from Atlantic bluefin tuna, along with teeth and spinal coloumns from toothed whales," he says.

Trapped in the lagoon 

How did the tuna and the whales end up there? 

The researchers concluded that 5,000 years ago, the bog was a lagoon. On the surrounding land were Stone Age settlements that today lie about 12 metres above sea level.

Tuna and orcas followed herring and became trapped in the lagoon with no way out. People then jumped into their boats with fishing gear and harpoons. 

"The idea was to harpoon the orcas and tuna, let them bleed, and prevent them from escaping. They could then be dragged ashore," says Nielsen. 

It was not always successful.

The researchers interpret the skeletons found in the bog as the remains of animals that initially managed to get away but later died from their injuries. 

Continuing the search

Nielsen says there is strong evidence that people in the Nordic region engaged in whaling at least 5,000 years ago – just as early as the findings reported from Brazil. 

He considers the finds from Jortveit among the most convincing evidence discovered so far.

"There has been speculation that people in Denmark hunted whales during the Ertebølle period. That would have been another 1,000 years earlier. But no firm conclusion has been reached yet. The prevailing view is that people mainly exploited whales that had already stranded," says Nielsen.

Rock carvings depicting whales provide additional clues. Some of these carvings are even older and appear alongside images of other hunted animals. Nielsen points to the carvings at Skogerveien in Drammen, which are more than 6,000 years old, as a well-known example.

Nielsen and his colleagues will continue investigating how people in the past made use of the sea, including conducting dives in Øygarden near Bergen on the western coast of Norway, where whaling with crossbows and spears is known to have continued until the 19th century.

"We are very excited about what we might find," he says.

In May, Nielsen and his colleagues began excavations at a farm on Tromøy, where researchers believe the same type of hunting practiced at Jortveit during the Late Stone Age may also have taken place.  

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Translated by Alette Bjordal Gjellesvik

Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no

Reference: 

Nielsen, S.V. & Persson, P. The Jortveit farm wetland: A Neolithic fishing site on the Skagerrak coast, Norway (Abstract), Journal of Wetland Archaeology, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/14732971.2020.1776495

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