Until now, the Early Mesolithic in Northern Europe has been rather obscured by a fragmented archaeological record. What is known is that pioneers from the Central European as well as the Eurasian plains migrated into a completely new and quite barren landscape, just after the glaciers retreated. These nomadic hunter-gatherers faced some of the same challenges as we do today, such as climatic warming and rising sea-levels. The Preboreal—the time period just after the Younger Dryas—saw fluctuating temperatures, leading into increasingly warm subsequent geological periods. The floral and faunal composition gradually changed from taxa adapted to the previous harsh conditions of the Late Glacial, to a more continental one, completely replacing the old. However, much of this information is based on fragmentary evidence, especially when it comes to the preservation of organic material—one reason being that large parts of Sweden and most of Norway lack limestone deposits and are rich in acidic soils not conducive to preservation.

The Early Settlement of Northern Europe, edited by Glørstad, is a collection of articles forming a trilogy of hefty books. Each volume focuses on different subjects related to the Early Holocene in northern Europe. The forty articles total 1238 pages, supplemented by 367 figures and eighty-five tables. Together these books describe in detail the colonization of northern Europe in the first millennia of the Holocene, and how pioneers settled in this virgin landscape after the retreat of the Weichselian ice sheets, coping with changes including exposure to a new landscape, new flora and fauna, new raw material for tool production, and encounters with other groups of hunter-gatherers, all of which forced them to adapt.

Volume 1, Ecology of Early Settlement in Northern Europe: Conditions for Subsistence and Survival, is edited by Persson, Riede, Skar, Breivik, and Jonsson. The major themes are ecology and the conditions for subsistence and survival. Chapter 1 (Skar & Breivik) provides an introduction to the subject, alongside an overview of the following articles.

Chapters 2–8 discuss migration into the Skagerrak-Kattegat region and the establishment of permanent settlements in this area. Jonsson (Ch. 2) gives an introduction to the subfossil record in the Skagerrak area, and infers what was probably present in southern Norway based on finds from Huseby Klev in Sweden, since organic material is not preserved from the Early Holocene in Norway. He further delivers a substantial critique of Boethius’ research on the same site (see Ch. 5) and the latter's interpretation of several aspects related to taphonomy, stratigraphy, and taxonomic identification at the site. But how did people reach the location in the first place, and how was hunting practiced? Schmitt (Ch. 3) argues that the Hensbacka travelled by boat, and uses shoreline displacement to date the Hensbacka sites, which lack organic material for radiocarbon dating while Cziesla (Ch. 4) presents a new take on the use of biserial harpoons and Lyngby axes, proposing that they may have been used for hunting seal as opposed to reindeer. As noted above, Boethius (Ch. 5) also presents material from Huseby Klev, Sweden—one of the only coastal Early Mesolithic sites included in these books at which organic material was preserved—arguing that a human-induced marine mammal collapse led to an intensification of fishing in this early period. Mansrud and Persson (Ch. 6) build an argument for a marine subsistence economy in the Skagerrak region in the Early and Middle Mesolithic, based on settlement locations near to the prehistoric coastline, as well as giving an introduction to Middle Mesolithic fish hook technology. Mjærum (Ch. 7) discusses the killing of large ungulates along natural chokepoints in the area around Røyrtjønna in Oppland county from the Middle Mesolithic onwards. The last article in this section, by Persson (Ch. 8), builds on Boaz's settlement intensity model (Reference Boaz and Boaz1999), which argues that the presence or absence of settlements can be inferred based on the presence or absence of radiocarbon dates. In light of this, Persson adds 105 AMS dates conducted on burnt bone from inland locations in Norway to Boaz's dataset. Based on the fluctuations observed in the sum of a total of 364 radiocarbon dates, Persson argues that the inland population decreased around c. 8300 cal bc before increasing at around 6900 cal bc, and gives indications as to what might have caused these differences.

Chapters 9–13 deal with the Early Mesolithic in the Baltic region, more specifically Sweden. Hallgren (Ch. 9) presents a very small Preboreal settlement uncovered at the Motala site in western Sweden. Moving further east, Petterson and Wikell (Ch. 10) present firm evidence of seal hunters island-hopping around the Södertorn archipelago, and also of the use of seal fat as a fuel. Keeping with the theme of seal hunting, Apel and Storå (Ch. 11) apply a behavioural ecology approach to uncover how new arrivals adjusted to hunting on Gotland, and how these early mariners colonized the Baltic islands, from a protein cost-benefit perspective. Thereafter, Boethius (Ch. 12) presents the evidence for large-scale fisheries and the potential harvest of forty-eight tonnes of fish during the habitation of Norje Sunnansund. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the scale of marine exploitation reflects a highly structured society. A little further south, Nilsson, Sjöstrom, and Persson (Ch. 13) present the submerged and extraordinarily well-preserved Early Mesolithic landscape at Haväng off the coast of Blekinge, as well as some of the oldest wooden fish weirs in the world.

The remaining four chapters deal with the environmental conditions and land use in the North Sea area. Svendsen (Ch. 14) surveys twelve municipalities for Early Mesolithic Fosna sites, and based on this asserts that the Early Mesolithic population of western Norway combined their heavy reliance on seal hunting with ventures into the mountains to hunt reindeer. A potential caveat to these explanations is that there are no organic materials preserved and therefore all conclusions are inferred. However, Rosvold and Breivik (Ch. 15) do utilise organic material in the form of a partial skeleton of a bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) dated to the Preboreal Oscillation cold event. Even though it is of a palaeontological nature, the find can still be used as a proxy for biotope and climate reconstruction of the Early Mesolithic environment, indicating it was rich in benthic organisms but also featured drift ice serving as breeding, resting, and foraging grounds for these ice-obligates. The last two chapters focus on the northerly British isles. Wickham-Jones and colleagues (Ch. 16) explore the landscape above and beneath the waves of Orkney by using a multidisciplinary approach to model and predict where settlement occurred. Wicks and Mithen, with contributions from others (Ch. 17), conclude Volume 1 by exploring the ‘settling of the unknown’ by early mariners at the Isle of Coll in Fiskary Bay (Inner Hebrides). Based on Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates, they argue for three occupation periods, before the island was potentially deserted, perhaps due to the 8.2ka cold event. The chapter finishes with a description and analysis of site finds, i.e. lithics, pollen, faunal remains, and archaeobotanical analysis.

Volume 2, Technology of Early Settlement in Northern Europe: Transmission of Knowledge and Culture is edited by Knutsson, Knutsson, Apel, and Glørstad. The focus of this book is almost entirely on lithic technology. The first article (Ch. 1), by the editors, is an overview of the articles to come and how they seek to answer questions related to the transmission or adaptation of technology and communication based on ideas rooted in sociological theory.

Chapters 2–4 discuss lithic manufacture and raw material acquisition during the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition in the context of the pioneers. Manninen and colleagues (Ch. 2), explore the impact of pioneers migrating into the ‘virgin’ landscape of north-eastern Fennoscandia. Of particular interest is the technological flexibility displayed by these early colonizers to make use of the very different raw materials that were available. Grużdź (Ch. 3) presents a technological overview of Post-Swiderian blade technology in Poland based on refitting of opposed platform cores, while Berg-Hansen (Ch. 4) gives an impressive overview of the technological shift in core and blade production from the Ahrensburgian to the Early Mesolithic in Scandinavia and northern Germany.

Chapters 5–10 are focused on the Mesolithic. Damlien and colleagues (Ch. 5) build on a previous study (Sørensen et al., Reference Sørensen, Rankama, Kankaanpää, Knutsson, Knutsson, Melvold, Eriksen and Glørstad2013), but widen the resolution by including thirty-two new sites and 117 radiocarbon dates. The results show that the pressure blade technology originated somewhere in Eurasia in the Upper Palaeolithic and then spread into western Scandinavia and moved south taking multiple routes. The article also provides a seven-page appendix of radiocarbon dates used in the article. Adamczyk presents a technological study of Early Mesolithic sites from the Polish island of Wolin (Ch. 6), and how these different groups adapted their technological solutions to suit the raw material available. Sørensen (Ch. 7) delivers a pan-south Scandinavian overview of blade technology during the Maglemosian phase 3, arguing that pressure blade technology was probably not fully developed during this period, and most likely came from the north. Chapter 8 by Eymundsson and colleagues presents an analysis and classification of axes from the Early to Middle Mesolithic around the Oslofjord area. The only article involving organic material is presented by David and Kjällquist (Ch. 9). They argue that the recently excavated site at Norja Sunnansund in south-eastern Sweden might represent the route by which slotted bone technology reached the Danish Maglemosian area in the Late Boreal chronozone. The final article in the volume is by Guinard (Ch. 10), who also deals with the spread of the pressure blade technology, but in this case focusing on Sweden. It is suggested that the technology spread along the rivers and south into Scania and Denmark, but that the transmission might have occurred via groups moving up from southern Scandinavia and making contact with those groups already possessing the technology.

Volume 3, Early Economy and Settlement in Northern Europe: Pioneering, Resource Use, Coping with Change is edited by Blankholm. The focus is on the economy and settlement patterns of early Holocene pioneers of northern Scandinavia. Blankholm (Ch. 1) sets the scene for the book, reviewing the articles to come and in the process emphasizing that the early pioneers were exercising a maritime way of life, based on the fact that the majority of sites are located close to the prehistoric coastline. This volume is loosely organized geographically from north to south.

Kleppe (Ch. 2) discusses the colonization of northern Norway. Based on radiocarbon dates, lithics, vegetational data, and geology, he argues for different routes into northern Norway, namely both along the west coast and through Russia into Fennoscandia. Gjerde and Skandfer (Ch. 3) document the remains of substantial house pits at Tønsnes in northern Norway dated to around 8000 bp; due to the size of the dwellings the authors argue this is evidence for winter habitation and thus year-round settlement. Blankholm (Ch. 4) takes an unconventional approach to settlement patterns, using GIS and neural networks to predict the location of settlement sites on the Varanger peninsula. Several potential sites were suggested, and fifty-six new sites were found and verified through land surveys. Pioneer settlement in northern Sweden is scrutinised by Östlund (Ch. 5), who presents the three sites Aareavaara, Kangos, and Dumpokjauratj. Based on radiocarbon dates as well as topography, he argues that the three sites’ uniformity in regards to topographic position in the landscape may serve as a guide for finding new sites in this vast area. Rankama and Kanpaanpää (Ch. 6) revisit the theme of eastern influence with reports on the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle, in terms of an eastern influence in northern Sweden at the site of Sujala, which exhibits all the traits associated with Post-Swederian lithics technology.

Moving further south, to south Central Norway, Breivik and Bjerck (Ch. 7) give a synopsis of the existing archaeological record of 244 documented sites dated to the Early Mesolithic. They list different topics associated with these sites, such as age, location, settlement structure, and lithic tool tradition. The article also contains a twelve-page appendix with short descriptions of sites with dwelling structures and associated metadata. Fretheim and colleagues (Ch. 8) present another comparative analysis of Early Mesolithic dwellings, using a recently excavated dwelling structure at Mohalsen 2012-II, Vega, Norway, as the focus of the study. An overview of twenty-two known examples of such dwelling structures is also included as an appendix. Continuing southwards, to the west coast of Norway, Åstveit (Ch. 9) gives an introduction to the geological setting, climate, and shoreline displacement curves in Møre and Romsdal, Sogn and Fjordane, and Hordaland; as well as what was probably present in terms of fauna. He then presents six thoroughly excavated sites as case studies for comparison, before discussing different sites affected by the Tepes transgression and the difficulties of obtaining reliable radiocarbon dates from this region. Bang-Andersen (Ch. 10) discusses the settling of the interior and coastal region of south-western Norway. The article focuses on two site complexes in the mountains of south-western Norway, namely Myrvatn and Fløyrlivatn, the earliest known habitation sites in Norway. The chapter concludes with some interesting thoughts by the author regarding the possibility of a Late Glacial presence on the Jæren moraine plain in south-western Norway, which is known to have been ice-free during the Allerød interstadial. The article also includes an appendix of the hitherto excavated Preboreal sites of this region. Next, Dugstad (Ch. 11) presents a case study of five Early Mesolithic sites excavated on the island of Hundvåg, north of Stavanger. The author argues for a more complex social organization than is usually assumed for the Early Mesolithic, based on the distribution of lithics as well as evidence for an apprentice flint knapper on the site. Chapter 12 (Damlien & Solheim) provides an introduction to the Early and Middle Mesolithic of Eastern Norway. Based on recent excavations, the authors present arguments for similarities between the Early Mesolithic population and the Maglemose 0 and Hensbacka groups. Furthermore, they argue that there was an earlier presence in the interior than previously suggested, thus indicating that permanent occupation was established as soon as the glaciers retreated. The final article of the volume and the series is by Nyland (Ch. 13) and concerns the Early Mesolithic site of Pauler 2, south-eastern Norway. The author argues that Pauler 2 might be a special site, in the sense that only flint was used as raw material as opposed to other non-perishable sedimentary cryptocrystalline materials. Significantly, three ‘needle points’ made of flint were discovered which have no parallels in Early Mesolithic Norway. These aspects could perhaps point towards people frequenting Pauler from southern Scandinavia or Germany.

This trilogy represents an incredible collection of articles focused on the time just after the Weichselian Ice Age. The three books contain a plethora of information regarding flora, fauna, geology, and technology, stemming from decades of excavation and of research on the vast body of material unearthed, especially in Norway. But is it worth splitting this into three volumes, considering that each costs £110 to £135?

At first glance, the books look appealing: the layout is consistent, they are furnished with a thorough index, and are richly illustrated. However, the graphics, whilst plentiful, are of low resolution. Indeed, it looks as if a substantial amount of the graphical content has been downscaled; this is problematic for the reader as some details are almost impossible to read.

Volume 1 is the most diverse in terms of national input, and the only one to deal with the available organic material (apart from Vol. 2, Ch. 9), which is crucial to understanding how these early pioneers exploited and lived off the available biotopes. In the foreword of this volume, Skar and Breivik note that:

This statement holds true for the other volumes. Organic material from the Early Mesolithic in northern Europe is almost non-existent north of Gothenburg in Sweden, mostly due to acidic soils (Vol. 1, Ch. 15). The majority of the papers (basically Volumes 2 and 3) are thus almost entirely focused on non-perishable materials and a lot of indirect inferences regarding species availability. That being said, it is impressive just how much information the authors are able to ‘squeeze’ out of the data, which from a Danish perspective seems quite limited.

That said, when faunal remains are available, in the case of Huseby Klev in Sweden, it seems to provoke a one-sided academic dispute between Jonsson (Vol. 1, Ch. 2) and Boethius (Vol. 1, Ch. 5). This takes the form of a sustained and unjustified attack by the former on the latter's faunal identifications and main interpretations. The fact that Jonsson is an editor of this volume, and Boethius is seemingly unaware of the criticism that precedes his work, makes this confrontation all the more distasteful. Presenting these disagreements in a debate-article format would have been much more agreeable and would have allowed both sides to present their case and accompanying evidence in an unbiased way (see e.g. Åstveit, Reference Åstveit2014).

Several of the articles in Volume 2 deal with questions of lithic technology, particularly the use of the pressure technique to make blades. This innovation is argued to have been developed in the Far East, likely present-day Siberia, Mongolia, or northern China, some 20,000 years ago (Inizan, Reference Inizan and Desrosiers2012), and then to have spread westwards and entered Fennoscandia right after the ice retreated. This is also in line with newly available genetic data (Günther et al., Reference Günther, Malmström, Svensson, Omrak, Sańchez-Quinto and Kılınç2018). Volume 3 deals with the remarkable presence of in situ dwelling structures in Norway, which are abundant. In some areas such remains are immediately visible on the ground, as soil build up is extremely slow and they have not been affected by ploughing.

There are a few puzzling aspects of this trilogy, however: why are there only three articles devoted to continental northern Europe? Material is present at least from the interior peat bogs in Denmark and Germany, even with good organic preservation, from the Boreal and onwards (Sørensen et al., Reference Sørensen, Rankama, Kankaanpää, Knutsson, Knutsson, Melvold, Eriksen and Glørstad2018), albeit less abundant than further north, since the coastal Early Mesolithic of present-day Denmark and northern Germany is largely located on the seabed. Or is it because the material from the south Scandinavian landmasses is to some extent ‘covered’ by previous works (Eriksen, Reference Eriksen2006)?

The trilogy represents an almost overwhelming amount of information. Keeping track of this can at times almost exhaust the reader, for instance regarding the different lithic technologies first moving in one direction, then the other, and then mixing. Most chapters range from twenty to twenty-five pages, which in some cases seems a bit excessive. However, an overall picture does start to emerge: pioneers migrated northwards from Central Europe immediately after the ice lost its grip. This push was largely driven by exploitation of the rich biotope that was and is the sea, and the speed by which this happened must have required seaworthy vessels. As northern Scandinavia and Fennoscandia became ice-free, groups following the Post-Swederian tradition migrated into this area from present-day Russia, with a new flint technology that gradually made its way down south. Whether it was the same people that reached present-day Denmark during the Middle Mesolithic, or whether the latter came through the Baltic countries, remains open to debate.

So, where does this leave us? The books are certainly an important contribution to the settlement of northern Europe, but were three books really necessary? With such a high price tag for each book, it seems to be a very narrow audience that will read them. That being said, I certainly learned a lot from these works, which do represent the current knowledge of most of this large area, albeit perhaps with too much emphasis on the north-western part of the Scandinavian peninsula.