Dr. T. Douglas Price, with a team of American and Danish collaborators, will conduct two years of preliminary archaeological research to set the groundwork for a major, long term project. The team will undertake archaeological survey and limited excavation in the Saltbaek Vig region of eastern Denmark. This area, typical of southern Scandinavia, is known to contain sites from the "Mesolithic" (terminal hunting and gathering) and "Neolithic" (early farming) periods. It has excellent preservation of archaeological remains. During two field seasons, the team will initiate an archaeological survey to locate and identify unknown prehistoric sites. They will also record museum and amateur collections to define and characterize assemblages that are already known, and they will conduct paleoenvironmental studies in the area. These investigations will constitute the first systematic survey for Stone Age sites in Denmark, help to document changes in sea level, temperature and vegetation, and establish the chronology and distribution of known sites, as the baseline for further investigation. Approximately 5,000 years ago, Neolithic farmers appear suddenly in southern Denmark, and they rapidly replace the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer occupants. While this fact is clear, the mechanisms involved in this transition are little understood. It is not known to what extent resident hunters and gatherers were replaced by new populations or whether these groups rapidly changed their subsistence practices when new techniques, plants, and animals were made available to them. It seems that domestic plants and animals were slow in coming to Denmark, but once they appeared, a rapid transition ensued. Dr. Price and his colleagues will examine this change and try to understand the mechanisms involved. The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture constitutes perhaps the single most important advance in human prehistory. Within very short periods of time, many populations were exposed to a new mode of subsistence and underwent rapid social transformation. By understanding this process, anthropologists can gain new insight into the plasticity of human social organization and the mechanisms involved in rapid social change. This research will provide insight into societies in isolated parts of the world who today are undergoing this same transformation.
