The Komsa culture (''Komsakulturen'') was a

Mesolithic The Mesolithic ( Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...

culture of

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...

s that existed from around 10,000 BC in

Northern Norway Northern Norway ( nb, Nord-Norge, , nn, Nord-Noreg; se, Davvi-Norga) is a geographical region of Norway, consisting of the two northernmost counties Nordland and Troms og Finnmark, in total about 35% of the Norwegian mainland. Some of the lar ...

. The culture is named after Mount Komsa in the community of Alta,

Finnmark Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024. On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbour ...

, where the remains of the culture were first discovered. The term was first used by the Norwegian archaeologist Anders Nummedal (1867–1944) after the discoveries he made on Mount Komsa in 1925. The distinction between a "Komsa" type of stone-tool culture north of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at ...

and a " Fosna" type from

Trøndelag Trøndelag (; sma, Trööndelage) is a county in the central part of Norway. It was created in 1687, then named Trondhjem County ( no, Trondhjems Amt); in 1804 the county was split into Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag by the King of Denma ...

Oslofjord The Oslofjord (, ; en, Oslo Fjord) is an inlet in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the and lighthouses and down to in the south to Oslo in the north. It is part of the Skagerrak strait, connecting the N ...

was rendered obsolete in the 1970s. Nowadays both phenomena are ascribed to different types of tools of the same culture."Norway"
''Britannica'' Online Recent archaeological finds from Finnish Lapland were originally thought to represent an inland aspect of the Komsa culture equally old as the earliest finds from the Norwegian coast. However, this material is now considered to be affiliated with the contemporary Post-

Swiderian culture The Swiderian culture is an Upper Palaeolithic/Mesolithic cultural complex, centred on the area of modern Poland. The type-site is ''Świdry Wielkie'', in Otwock near the Swider River, a tributary to the Vistula River, in Masovia. The Swideria ...

of North Central

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

and the eastern

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

and thus to represent a separate early incursion into northernmost

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...

. The commonly held view today is that the earliest settlement of the North Norwegian coast originated on the western and southwestern coast of Norway and ultimately in the final Palaeolithic

Ahrensburg culture The Ahrensburg culture or Ahrensburgian (c. 12,900 to 11,700 BP) was a late Upper Paleolithic nomadic hunter culture (or technocomplex) in north-central Europe during the Younger Dryas, the last spell of cold at the end of the Weichsel glaciat ...

of northwestern Europe. The Komsa are thought to have followed the Norwegian coastline when receding

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate bet ...

at the end of the last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

(between 11,000 and 8000 BC) opened up new areas for settlement. It was formerly believed that some elements may have moved into modern-day

from the northeast, possibly coming from ice-free coasts of the

Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (russian: Кольский полуостров, Kolsky poluostrov; sjd, Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk ...

. However, recent research indicates that a number of the coastal sites in the Varangerfjord area previously attributed to the second phase of the "Komsa" continuum actually represent an early incursion from the southeast (northwestern Russia) and are related to the early Post-Swiderian influx discovered in northernmost Finnish Lapland. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...

hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen. In comparison to the southern Norway's contemporary Fosna variety of this same culture, stone tools and other implements appear relatively crude. This has been explained with a paucity of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start ...

stone in the region.

References

Other sources

*Clark, Grahame (2009) ''The Earlier Stone Age Settlement of Scandinavia'' (Cambridge University Press) *Hansen, Lars Ivar and Bjørnar Olsen (2004) ''Samenes Historie: Fram til 1750'' (Cappelen Akademisk) * Olsen, Bjørnar (1994) ''Bosetning og samfunn i Finnmarks forhistorie'' (Universitetsforlaget) * Olsen, Bjørnar (1997) ''Fra ting til tekst: Teoretiske perspektiv i arkeologisk forskning'' (Universitetsforlaget) {{ISBN, 978-82-00-22890-5 Mesolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures of Northern Europe Archaeology of Norway Nordic Stone Age Prehistory of the Arctic Peopling of Europe 10th-millennium BC establishments

See also

References

Other sources