Reading the deep past
Ten thousand years ago the first people walked into a Norway that the ice had only just released. They left no writing, no names and no stories – only flint, bone, charcoal and the pollen that settled in the bogs. Yet from these traces we can now say a remarkable amount about how they lived, how many they were, and why their societies rose and fell. Artemisia AS exists to carry that knowledge out of the laboratory and the journal and into classrooms, museums, lecture halls and hospital wards.
Talks and lectures
The lectures draw on original research and on the current international literature, and they are written to be understood by audiences with no prior knowledge – without surrendering the scholarship. Two talks are currently offered. The genetic history of Norway traces the outlines of the Norwegian population’s genetic past in the light of the newest ancient-DNA studies: who the first Norwegians were and where they came from, how many people lived in Norway five thousand years ago, which waves of migration shaped the population, and what bottlenecks such as the Black Death did to those who came after. The Stone Age in Norway presents a period that lasted many thousands of years – longer than all later history combined – and that might have continued had the world around it not changed; it follows the first post-glacial pioneers, the hunters and fishers of the coast and the first farmers, with particular emphasis on how and why the period came to an end. Talks last 45–90 minutes, in English or Norwegian, in person or online, and are adapted to audiences ranging from schools and local societies to universities, museums and corporate events.
Teaching aids
Artemisia makes replicas of Stone Age artefacts in flint – the material the period’s own people preferred – shaped after original finds in Norwegian museum collections: type series of the most representative tools and weapons, and chronological sets that follow the development from the first post-glacial pioneers to the first farmers, each accompanied by texts written by researchers. Everything is made by hand and to order, and a certain waiting time from order to delivery should be expected; schools, museums and other institutions interested in series, sets or collaboration are invited to get in touch.
The name
The genus Artemisia – wormwood and mugwort – produces pollen that survives for millennia in bogs and lake sediments. Where it accumulates, forest has given way to open, disturbed ground: pasture, field, path. It is among the earliest marks that humans left on the landscape, long before they left marks on paper. The name is a programme: to read the deep past in its smallest traces.
About
Artemisia AS is owned and run by Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen, an archaeologist specialising in the Stone Age of Norway and northern Europe. He holds a PhD from the Museum of Cultural History and the University of Oslo (2022), with a thesis on economic and demographic change in southern Norway through the Neolithic, built on quantitative methods and Monte Carlo analyses of radiocarbon dates. He works as senior curator at the Stavanger Maritime Museum; Artemisia AS operates independently of the museum. Publications are available via ResearchGate and the Norwegian national research archive.
Contact
svein.v.nielsen@gmail.com · Artemisia AS · Org. no. 933 022 420 · Stavanger, Norway
