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Fishing has been dealt with in osteology and archaeology for some time, but has never really been discussed from a strictly maritime archaeological perspective. This thesis focuses on archaeological faunal material, the so-called refuse fauna, through the study of Stone Age fishing in the Varangerfjord, northern Norway, from 6800 to 1800 B.P. The study discusses the combination of zooarchaeology and maritime archaeology, which are two branches within archaeology that is fairly new to the discipline, and advocates a new approach to introduce more character to them. Osteological and archaeological material should not be handled separately, and information gathered both from faunal material and artefacts have provided valuable information about early maritime culture. This information includes the exploitation of natural resources, technological developments and social aspects of maritime utilisation. This study is a result of up-to-date research on the Stone Age maritime culture at the Varangerfjord, and should be especially useful for archaeologists and osteologists with interest in early maritime adaptation.

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Rasmus Svensson, M.Phil: Studied Prehistoric archaeology, Medieval archaeology and Historical osteology at Lund University and Maritime archaeology at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology).

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