Program > By speaker > Söderlind Sandra

Large-scale migrations of people are not only a current phenomenon, rather it is something that has taken place more or less constantly throughout history. Past migrations and communication networks were crucial for the spread of cultural traditions and technological knowledge, which has formed the bases of the societies that we live in today. Therefore, it is important to bring forth not only the patterns of prehistoric contacts and migrations but also to highlight the subsequent results of them, specifically relating to transmission of knowledge.

The current works deal with large-scale Mesolithic mobility, contacts and transmission of knowledge in northern Europe. The focus lies on a specific technological concept, centred on blade production, from elongated single-fronted cores, known as handle cores. This pressure-based technology is a good study object for transmission of knowledge since it is technologically complex and thus requires some form of teaching, which includes social interaction, to spread. The concept was established in large parts of northern Europe during the 7th-5th millennium BC. The results of detailed technological studies, from different parts of northern Europe, are used as a base for discussing various types of knowledge transfer on several spatial levels.