Hunting for Hide. Investigating an Other-Than-Food Relationship Between Stone Age Hunters and Wild Animals in Northern Europe

2.1 Hide Qualities

To animals, skin and fur serve as protection, a sensory organ, waterproofing, and camouflage, with the primary role being thermoregulation. All of these qualities can be transferred to man-made objects if the hides are treated well. Raw hides and skins may be processed into leather, which is basically hides with the hair removed, and fur, where the hairs are kept. They can easily be cut into different sizes and shapes and stitched together into larger or smaller strong, light, flexible, and non-permeable, items. This makes hide an extremely adaptable material for a wide variety of purposes. Clothes, shoes, and tents made of sturdy hide and skin have served the purpose of sheltering the human body from cold or wet environments and keeping it sufficiently warm. Leather may have been sewn into bags, baskets, and purses suitable for storage and food preparation container purposes, and into carrying or protecting bags for large to very small objects. In addition, hide and skin were modified into water-resistant, strong and flexible snares, nets, fishing lines, tying ropes, and lashes of various lengths and widths to accommodate a large variety of different needs in a hunter-gatherer community.

Hides from the same types of animals vary in quality between seasons. Thick-hair growth is one of the defining characteristics of mammals, and Arctic mammals in particular have dense fur, which becomes more insulating and longer during late autumn and winter. Another characteristic of Arctic mammals is that several species shift colour seasonally. Many have white fur during the winter and darker colour during summer, such as hare, Arctic fox (Arctic region), mountain fox (North America), and marten, whereas other species change to a darker winter fur, such as the red squirrel. Seasonal colour co-varies with some general age-dependent qualities. Northern mammals give birth in late winter to late spring, meaning that hide from young individuals, with different fur colours and thinner skins than older individuals, can be obtained from spring to autumn. A seasonally related factor conditioning the hide quality of large ungulates is that they host various fly larvae, which leave holes in their skins during summer (Fauchald et al., 2007). Reindeer hair grows throughout the year, and with periods of shedding and re-growth, hides are in prime, full-grown fur condition only for a few weeks in late summer and early autumn. This is also when insect holes would begin to close. Rank fighting, particularly during mating season, can leave scars and thus weaken the skins of male walrus and seal (Petersen, 1986), possibly also hides of ungulates and other animals. Factors influencing the availability of good quality hide or skin thus include not only general climatic and topographical conditions but also extend to the individual animal level, including their size, age, sex, social rank, and general health condition.

One of the characteristics of the Arctic, including northernmost Europe, mammal fauna is that many species are only seasonally available in the local landscape. However, choice of hide for different purposes was not based strictly on availability. Different purposes have required different hide qualities and selection was based on profound knowledge and understanding of the distinct properties of different furs. The following ethnographic examples give some impression of the variety of quality preferences. Hides from large ungulates have been of particular importance for clothing in the circumpolar region, the light and flexible reindeer/caribou hides with their isolating air-filled hairs standing in a particular position. Distinctions in fur colour and skin thickness related to animal age and sex have, in addition, been highly relevant when selecting which hides were worn by children, women, and men, and used for a variety of other items (Chaussonnet, 1988; Hatt, 1914b, p. 9; Sharp & Sharp, 2015, pp. 171, 184–186). Seal skin, on the other hand, is not particularly warm but very strong and extremely water-repellent. It was used for kayakers’ jackets and other types of clothing among the Inuit and Aleut. Smaller clothing items, such as hoods, mittens, or trimmings, could be made from the skins of dog, fox, wolf, or smaller fur-bearing mammals such as beaver or marten – and bird skin with the feathers left on (the use of bird skins and feathers is not addressed further here). Even larger clothing items, such as particularly elaborate coats or parkas, could be made of combinations of fur exclusively from small animals (Chaussonnet, 1988; Hatt, 1914b; Schefferus, 1956, pp. 234–235).

Hides from different animal species not only have different physical qualities, but the various parts of each individual skin also possess distinct qualities and characteristics which have been selected for different purposes. The original shape and position of the animal skin and hair direction influenced the cut and design of circumpolar clothes, for practical, social, and spiritual reasons. Tailoring skin parts to cover the corresponding parts of the human body has been very common, not only for coats made of large body skins, but also seen in the use of, for example, bear paw fur for mittens and head skins from semi-large fur animals for hoods. Animal body parts could be accentuated as seen in head skin hoods with the ears preserved or tails kept at the lower back edge of coats (Chaussonnet, 1988, pp. 212–213; Issenman, 2007; Kleppe-Turunen, 2010, p. 48). The tough and hard to remove skin found on legs and heads of ungulates were used for shoes and boots among Inuits, Khanty, and Sámi (Chaussonnet, 1988; Hatt, 1914a, pp. 177–178; Schefferus, 1956, p. 235; Turi, 2012, p. 56).

Different types of hides are chosen for items other than clothing. Among the northern Canadian Denésuliné, the particularly tough hide on the lower leg of caribou has been a favoured material for sewing food-storage baskets (Sharp & Sharp, 2015, p. 6). Sámi herders preferred dried raw furs from reindeer as sleeping-mats placed atop a layer of cut branches in their mobile dwellings. Surgut Khanty in the Russian taiga used raw elk/moose skins for carpets in houses or on sledges (Glavatskaya, 2006, p. 122). Inuinnait in the northwest territories, Canada, used caribou, polar bear, and muskox hides on the sleeping platforms in their snow houses (Damas, 1984b, p. 405). Seal skins were used for summer tents and containers for water and oil among Netsilik Inuits (Balikci, 1984, p. 416). Regional and local variations are reported in choices of raw or dried seal or small whale skins according to species for boat covers (kayak, umiak, and similar wooden-frame boats) in North America and Greenland (Balikci, 1984; Chapelle, 2007; Luukkanen & Fitzhugh, 2020; Petersen, 1986). Within-species differentiation is also reported. For instance, traditional Greenland umiaks usually were covered at the stem and stern by two good quality male hooded seal hides, whereas smaller female hooded seal hides were used in the middle. Preferences in hide colours and patterning add to the selection criteria for boat covers. Although various quality considerations were made, often all skins collected during the year had to be used to get enough cover material (Petersen, 1986, pp. 138, 140).

2.2 Hide Craft Activities

Both ethnographic descriptions and anthropological accounts describe how all parts of the process of making a hide item, from the selection of hides and skins via butchering technology to cutting, fitting, and sewing, are performed with the final product in mind. This is in line with experimental traditional hide processing (Kleppe-Turunen, 2010). The selective use of hide and fur suggests that the process starts when the hide is still on a live animal. The main characteristic of a good hide is that it has no holes or severe weaknesses. This makes demands not only on flensing, butchering, and other processing practices, but also on the choice of method and performance of the kill. Hunting free-roaming animals with projectile weapons such as spears and bow and arrow necessarily perforated the hide, and it would have been difficult to hit a specific spot on the animal body. Multiple wounds made by penetrating projectile points may have been the outcome. Trapping animals in snares, hunting pits, or nets would have allowed for more precisely directed wounding, if at all necessary, and left larger and specific parts of hides unperforated. In the Arctic region, smaller animals as well as reindeer, elk/moose, and wolves are known to have been trapped (e.g., Jacobsen & Andersen, 1992; Lie, 2003; Nadasdy, 2007; Vorren, 1998).

Animals were skinned immediately after being killed. According to Sharp and Sharp (2015, p. 6), experienced Dénesuliné hunters in Subarctic Canada needed only to use their fists to skin a caribou once they had ringed off the head and legs with a sharp knife. In contrast, skinning the much larger moose was a much more complicated process and requires a large, strong knife, due to the heavy and thick skin. The cutting left a lot of tissue adhering to the skin and thus increased the work for the person preparing it afterwards (Sharp & Sharp, 2015, pp. 130–131). Dénesuliné women skinned rabbits mostly by hands, ripping it off in one piece, and used small, thin-bladed knives to remove the entrails from the skin (Jarvenpa & Brumbach, 2006b). Experimental processing has shown that slate knives with their rounded edge and blunt point, commonly found in Late Stone Age settlements in northern Fennoscandia, are particularly suited for skinning everything from large mammals to fish, as well as for removing fat. Even very small tools were found to be useful (Israelsson, 2010, p. 21; Rahme, 2010, pp. 32–33).

After skinning and before further processing, various tissues left from the butchering had to be removed. Hide cleaning and scraping was a complex, tiring, and demanding operation defined throughout the circumpolar regions in hunter-gatherer societies as a female activity (Arima 1984; Jarvenpa & Brumbach, 2006a,b). For example, 40 labour-intensive hours spread over 2–3 days are reported for women preparing a moose hide among the Dénesuliné (Sharp & Sharp, 2015). Scraping tools of different materials may be chosen for the different stages of the cleaning process (e.g., Arima, 1984, Figure 2). Sharp stone and later metal edged tools, but most frequently large, long bone, antler, or wood implements with blunter edges, as well as slate tools with some of the same qualities as bone, are described in ethnographic and experimental archaeology as scraping tools among northern hunter-gatherers (Hatt, 1914b; Steinbring, 1966; Steward, 1973; Tunón, 2010). Granular stone tools, including pumice, are known to have been used to remove tissue from the inside surface (Adams, 1988, 2014; Cristiani & Zupancich, 2020; Dubreuil, 2004; Hatt, 1914b, p. 39).

After the initial cleaning and scraping, hides and skins were further processed from either a fresh or dry condition. Raw hides are waterproof on the inside, but thinning and scraping removes the basement membrane. Fresh hides had to be stretched out before drying to prevent shrinking (Figure 1). This was most often, but not everywhere, done early in the preparation process (Hatt, 1914b, pp. 20–23). Seal hides used for kayaks in Greenland were, for example, not stretched before drying (Petersen, 1986, p. 31). Instead, the flexibility potential was taken advantage of when the dry hides, after having been soaked soft in sea water, were stretched over the boat frames.

Figure 1

Habour seal (Phoca vitulina) hides stretched out and soaked in the tidal water zone, Måsvær, North Norway, in 1972. Harbour seal hides vary considerably in colour and pattern. Traditional hide processing documented by H. D. Bratrein, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

Dried hides, or parts of them, needed to be softened before being modified into clothes or other smaller, non-flat items. To a certain degree, softening could have been achieved through mechanical treatment, with every inch being rubbed, stretched, and handled repeatedly. Ethnographic records and experiments report that people primarily used their hands, feet, and teeth, or various tools made of substantial materials, including coarse granular handstones, to rub and soften hides (Adams 1988; Hatt, 1914b, p. 19; Jarvenpa & Brumbach, 2006a). Mechanical softening could have been combined with different types of tanning using fat, smoke, bark, ash, etc. the simplest perhaps being repeated freezing and thawing (Israelsson, 2010, p. 24).

Fat and smoke tanning are considered the oldest chemical tanning methods (Nesheim, 1964, pp. 201, 208; Rahme, 2010, p. 33), fat tanning being the most common among northern hunter-gatherers and particularly well-suited for tanning pelts. Fat tanning adds additional softness, water-resistance, and durability to the hide. It is suitable for skins from a variety of animals, such as seal, reindeer, elk/moose, beaver, and fox (Kleppe-Turunen, 2010, p. 46) and can also be used to produce effects in leather for decorative purposes. Particularly fatty hides need washing in order to remove some of the fat, whereas thin hides need additional fat. Depending on the fat content, a hide could be tanned in its own fat (Kleppe-Turunen, 2010; Swedjemark, 2010). Body fat, brain fat, liver from fish or seal, aquatic bird eggs, and roe and marrow extraction from boiled reindeer bones and hooves are only some of the fat sources known to have been used among northern hunter-gatherers, including those in northern Fennoscandia (Glavatskaya, 2006; Hatt, 1914b, p. 29; Kleppe-Turunen, 2010, p. 46).

Smoking may be the last distinct stage of a tanning process, but it can also be used in combination with fat processing in an earlier stage, as the slow heat helps the fat melt into the hide (Kleppe-Turunen, 2010; Sharp & Sharp, 2015, Chapter 10; Steinbring, 1966, p. 578). Antiseptic elements in smoke makes the hides more durable but can also change their colour depending on the firewood used. I have not come across materials other than wood being smoked for tanning. Smoking takes days or even a couple of weeks, depending on weather conditions and desired result (Steinbring, 1966, p. 578). Solutions of cooked or soaked bark from various trees, mixed with fat, was a well-known tanning procedure among hunter-gatherers, both for tanning dehaired leather and also to improve the ability of reindeer hides to keep the hairs (Hatt, 1914b, p. 32). But in northern Fennoscandia, it may have been a later technology than fat and smoke tanning (Nesheim, 1964, pp. 201, 208).

Bark could be gathered from a large variety of locally available species, and experiments with reindeer hides based on Sámi hide processing tradition have shown that different types of bark solutions act differently on the hides, leaving them harder or softer, thicker, lighter, or more or less shiny (Huuva & Håkansson, 2010, pp. 71–72). Bark tanning from different trees strongly affect colour, and this is probably part of the motivation for this treatment (Hatt, 1914b). The bark needs to stand in warm water for several hours before the hides are soaked into the acid solution and attended for days or even weeks. Afterwards, the hides need to be washed well and dried. Other chemical solutions known to have been used for tanning among northern hunter-gatherers are based on ash or certain types of red ochre (Hatt, 1914b, p. 35; Rifkin, 2011). Different tanning treatments provide the hides with different characteristics, including colours. For example, reindeer hides left covered in snow over winter turn into particularly light (white) leather. Sun exposure during drying, on the other hand, provides a golden hue. (Kleppe-Turunen, 2010; Swedjemark, 2010).

Hides that are to be prepared into leather must have the hairs removed. This could have been done by several means. Soaking them in water, snow, or urine, burying them under turf in a sunny spot or packing them tightly together in warm conditions indoors would all have activated a controlled acidic rotting process by which the hairs fell off or could easily be removed (Hatt, 1914b, pp. 24–25; Petersen, 1986, p. 138). A different method to dehair hides was by mechanically cutting and scraping off the hairs, hair-sacks, and upper-hide with a blunt-edged tool. Experiments have shown that a slate or bone knife or scraper is well suited (Rahme, 2010, p. 34). This mechanical treatment left a stronger and more durable leather (Hatt, 1914b, p. 24).

Clothes, shoes, boats, ropes, and lashes, and most other items of hide and fur used by northern hunter-gatherers were not manufactured from full-size raw hides, but from carefully processed and joined together cut pieces. Fitting and sewing were thus vital and time-consuming end stages of hide work. Hide clothes provided insulation but the design should enable the wearer as much free movement as possible. Clothes were therefore commonly fitted to individual persons (Chaussonnet, 1988). According to Hatt’s (1914b, pp. 39–46) ethnographic overview of Arctic clothing in Eurasia and America, knives were circumpolarly used to cut hides and skins, even in communities that had become familiar with scissors. Before sewing, the edges of the cut pieces could be chewed to render them supple (Marshall, 1996, p. 340). Thread was generally made of sinew from locally available large mammals, most often reindeer/caribou, but also whale or seal (Hatt, 1914b; Petersen, 1986; Swedjemark 2010, pp. 61–62). Sinew is extremely strong and flexible, and swells when wet, thus tightening the sewing holes and making clothes and footwear watertight. Sinew was cut out, stretched, and left to dry before being split, softened through mechanical treatment and moisturising, and then twined together and joined into long threads. Bone combs were used on both sides of the Bering Strait to split the sinew into narrower strings. Lashes made of thin skins, including fish-skins, are known to have been used as sewing thread in north Asia and north America (Hatt, 1914b). Hatt’s account suggests that there may have been a relation between what kind of sewing thread was used on which types of hides and skins, in that the two elements typically seem to originate from the same or similar animal species.

In north Asia and north America, needles with drilled eyes were made of bone prior to extensive European trade, which gave access to metal, as well as in later periods with a lack of steel needles. Ethnographically, needles are reported to have been made from fishbone and small bird-bone, and from caribou fibula (the smaller lower leg bone). Stitching holes could be pre-made by bone awls (Hatt, 1914b, pp. 39–46). From Hatt’s detailed description of Arctic hunter-gatherer and herder dressing, we learn that joints are pressed flat with smooth handstones or bone implements in order to prevent chafing the skin of the person wearing the item. Special effort has been put into footwear seams. These were often strengthened with additional thread, and sometimes the needle was not pushed all through the hide material, thus making the footwear particularly waterproof (Hatt, 1914b, pp. 43–44).

Choices in cutting, designing, and sewing were based on activities and local weather demands, available raw materials, and aesthetic values, but also on various characteristics and qualities held by the animals from which the skins originated. How the animal wore the hide typically guided the placement of different parts of a garment on the human body. Characteristics and qualities attributed to live animals were sought to be maintained in the finished garment and transferred to the wearer. Dressing up to appear as an animal has been seen as a “disguise” used by hunters approaching and killing animals (Anell, 1964), but according to northern ethnography, the use of hides was part of much more intricate and continual sets of human-animal relations. Elements from different species as well as individual animals were brought together in elaborate designs, using shapes, colours, types of fur and leather, hair-length, etc. to make representations of the animal(s) and reconcile these relationships (Chaussonnet, 1988). Intertwined in this, different garment cuts were important gender markers and conveyors of social identity in terms of lineage and regional belonging within hunter-gatherer communities.

Hide processing, evaluation, selection, and final production of items seem to have been regarded as an at least semi-specialist technological complex almost exclusively performed by women but aided by a number of other group members. The quality of the hide preparation and finished items established women’s self-esteem and the social reputation and status of her community, and particularly skilled women were highly valued and renowned (Balikci, 1984; Chaussonnet, 1988; Damas, 1984b; Glavatskaya, 2006, p. 130; Jarvenpa & Brumbach, 2006a,b; Petersen, 1986; Sharp & Sharp, 2015; Turi, 2012). Several ethnographic accounts describe how, during an intensive pre-winter sewing period, subsistence for the group could consist of ready-at-hand cached meat or fresh fish, both providing food at relatively low cost in a period of low mobility (Balikci, 1984; Damas, 1984b; Petersen, 1986; Turi, 2012). This suggests that investing relatively little time and labour in subsistence activities was one of the measures taken to direct effort towards preparing for winter.

2.3 How Much Hide Was Needed?

Prepared hide in adequate quality must have been a limited resource. Winter clothes seem throughout the circumpolar region to have included double layers of coats, the inner typically worn with the fur towards the human body and the outer with furs out, in addition to trousers, footwear, hoods, and mittens. Among reindeer herding Sámi, before textiles became common, summer coats and footwear were made of reindeer leather and winter clothes of reindeer pelts. It took at least four reindeer hides to make a Sámi coat and probably three to four for an inner shirt. Two hides were needed for a pair of trousers. In addition, reindeer herders used a short reindeer or bear pelt cape with or without hood, reindeer mittens, and headwear (Rheen, 1897; Schefferus, 1956, pp. 232, 235–239; Vorren & Manker, 1957). Among Siberian Surgut Khanty hunter-fisher-reindeer herders, approximately one reindeer per family member is estimated to be sufficient to provide hides for clothes over winter (Glavatskaya, 2006, p. 122), but this seems to be too low an estimate for pre-textile technology societies. Among Alaskan Iñupiaq, 12–15 caribou hides were needed annually to fulfil clothing demands for a family (Burch, 2012, pp. 38–39, 148). In pre-contact Denésuliné of subarctic Canada, winter clothing for one hunter required at least 7 caribou hides, and 22–27 hides were needed to cover a tent dwelling (Sharp & Sharp, 2015, pp. 174–189). Warm footwear, essential in northern areas, were particularly heavily worn and torn, and probably needed to be replaced most frequently. Reindeer or caribou hides acquired only as a biproduct of hunting for food through the year could hardly have covered the traditional demand because of the need for hides of specific qualities and characteristics for different purposes. As discussed earlier, the overall best quality would only have been available during a narrow temporal window in the autumn.

Experienced Greenland Inuit women could cover a normal-sized kayak with three large hides from harp seal. Hide from smaller seal species are used more frequently in the northern regions, and here five to six hides are needed for a full cover (Petersen, 1986, p. 31). Umiaks normally range from c. 4.5 to 18.5 m (c.15–60 feet) in length, the smaller ones sometimes being used for whaling and walrus hunting (Chapelle, 2007, p. 175). Hides were selected according to animal characteristics and hide quality. Depending on the type of hide and the size of the large transport umiak, it seems that between 3 and 20 hides were needed to cover a boat. In addition to the cover-skins, comes many meters of thin lashing straps, which required hide from two adult harp seals (Petersen, 1986, p. 142).

Working clothes made of reindeer/caribou hides only lasted for a year or winter season (Chaussonnet, 1988; Damas, 1984a; Hatt, 1914b; Sharp & Sharp, 2015, p. 179). Chaussonnet (1988, p. 211) refers to how Northern Alaskan and Bering Sea Inuits wore “[…] the tattered remains of winter clothing, the fur of which had been damaged by spring rain […]” during summer. This implies that full new outfits had to be produced annually. In addition, hides were needed for most, if not all, sleeping mattresses, roof covers, and leather and hide containers. Thongs for packing and harnessing draft animals and lines for making nets, traps, and fish lines may have had to be replaced more often. Other items probably did not need annual replacement, such as some containers or items including celebration or ceremonial clothing. Boat covers could last several years, depending on how much, and under which conditions, they were used. Greenland kayaks are reported to have been tenderly cared for, and that the covers lasted up to 3 years before they needed to be replaced, although many hunters preferred to change them annually or even twice a year (Petersen, 1986, p. 31). Earlier, umiak re-covering was done every year, sometimes twice, but with a decreasing seal population in Greenland, it became necessary to give extra greasing of seal oil and caribou fat to old umiak covers to make them last for 2 years. The hides could be treated with an extra greasing before long travels (Petersen, 1986, pp. 144–145).

Skilled sewers made the best items but were also best at economising with the hide. This reduced both the number of hides and the need for perforating stitching (e.g., Balikci, 1984; Damas, 1984b; Glavatskaya, 2006, p. 130; Petersen, 1986; Turi, 2012). Based on the above examples of hide use and maintenance, we should assume that measures were taken to make footwear, clothing, bags, tents, and boats last for as long as possible, but that few items lasted more than one to two winter seasons. Repair is seldom addressed in the ethnographic records and anthropological studies but should be taken into consideration when discussing how much hide was needed annually. Reindeer herding Sámi women in the mid-1900s devoted themselves to various production and mending activities during spare time at the summer camps, and in particular spent much time on producing new footwear (Vorren & Manker, 1957, pp. 43, 48). According to an older account, they chose to mend and make new clothes during winter, since this was the time of the mobility cycle when whole families were settled for a longer period and this gave the women time to unpack their tools and start tending wet, rotting, and torn clothes after repeated moving between camps (Turi, 2012, pp. 55–56). Although not mentioned explicitly, one could probably assume that some mending took place during shorter stops and on hunting expeditions, probably also by men.

3.1 Geographic Setting: Coastal Norway

The archaeological material this study is based on is from Stone Age habitation sites situated along the north Atlantic and Barents Sea coasts of Norway in northernmost Europe (Figure 2). The region has a latitudinal span from 58 to 71°N, which is equivalent to central Greenland in the south up to northernmost Hudson’s Bay, Foxe Basin, and the northern part of Nunavut including Baffin, Victoria, and Banks Islands in Canada. The Norwegian coast benefits from the North Atlantic current, which provides warm surface water resulting in a mostly ice-free coastline, generally warmer winter temperatures than in other equivalently northern regions, and milder and moister climate than in inland valleys and mountains of Fennoscandia. The north-south gradient determines a general climatic condition of gradually lower mean temperatures traveling north. This general pattern can be traced back into the Stone Age, although temperature, precipitation, and wind conditions have fluctuated (e.g., Sjögren & Damm, 2019).

Figure 2

Fennoscandia with case study sites situated along the coast of Norway. 1. Auve, 2. Slettabø, 3. Vistehola, 4. Sævarhelleren, 5. Kotedalen, 6. Stiurhelleren, 7. Storbåthallaren, 8. Iversfjord, and 9. Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest. Map by G. Skogvold, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

Climatic variations and fluctuations have affected vegetation types, presence of sea-ice cover, length of snow-cover, prevailing wind strength, and direction, to name some variables, and consequently conditioned which animals could be found in each landscape. The coastal topography varies considerably and includes large fjord systems, islands, and numerous sounds and bays. The mixture of local and super-local topographic features with related micro-climatic pockets provides conditions for a large variety of plants and animals within relatively small areas. Despite climatic changes and variations across the long timescale chosen, the large region possessed the same overall quality of local variations in Stone Age as today.

An important characteristic is that a number of fish, birds, and marine mammals seasonally migrate and are only present during parts of the year, including Atlantic cod, salmon, ducks, geese, swans, seals, and larger whales. Several land mammals, including the large ungulates red deer, reindeer, and elk, slightly change their habitats between sub-regions over the seasons to seek shelter from cold during winter and the critical spring calving period and to find the best grazing through the vegetation growing season. In addition, there are a few hibernating animals, including brown bear. This was also the situation during the Stone Age. Consequently, many hide-bearing animals could only be observed and hunted during certain parts of the year within an area.

3.2 The Archaeological Record

Several natural and social factors influence archaeological faunal material composition from chemical preservation conditions to practical and cultural butchering and deposition practices. In addition, the coarse excavation methods in early investigations must be considered. Available bone sample databases are thus a biased representation of what was originally deposited. Several samples have only been partly analysed, and sometimes preservation conditions have made only limited identification possible according to the species. Generally, we can assume that smaller, unburnt bones fully decompose more rapidly than larger bones, so that fish, bird, and small mammal bones, as well as small elements from extremities, have relatively lower representations in an osseous assembly of unburnt bones than larger bones. Most of the osseous material from several of the sites in southwestern Norway are, however, burnt. Burning favours small bones and bones from smaller animals, which will shrink but not fragment as much as larger bones. Larger bones in the material are generally heavily fragmented (Hufthammer, 1997, p. 45). Comparable standard faunal analysis results presenting number of bone fragments per species (NISP) are available in large part due to a Norwegian national cooperation between archaeologists and zoologists managed by the University of Bergen. Some project reports provide more details on minimum number of individuals, age of individual animals, and fragmentation state. Differences in excavation methods, preservation conditions, and detail level are addressed in this work by referring only to relative within-site differences in numbers between species and comparing which species are reported present at each site. A fundamental representativity issue in estimating the number and ratios of different species in archaeological osseous remains is that probably only parts of animals were taken from the killing site to the habitation site. In favour of an interpretation of a direct relation between identified bones and hide work, it can be suggested that hides were too valuable to leave behind, irrespective of size and quality. A common initial use was to wrap the hide around the killed animal or animal parts to which it belonged, in order to transport as much as possible to the camp (Sharp & Sharp, 2015).

Although biased in representation, the available information on osseous material provides insights into similarities and differences in the actual faunal representation at each site. This allows for making observations on a general, species-oriented level. Zooarchaeological determinations of faunal remains from 36 coastal sites in Norway, including the 9 case-study sites, are compiled in Tables 1 and 2. The table, roughly following a north-south gradient and thus reflecting regional variations in habitats on a general level, suggests which mammals could be encountered by humans in different coastal areas. Marine mammals, primarily seals and small whales, were probably important providers of large and water-repellent hides as well as meat in the entire study area. Small and medium-size whales, porpoise, and walrus were also hunted and provided for, among other things, skin. Other much sought meat as well as hide providers in the records are various ungulates. Reindeer, red deer, roe deer, and elk were probably the most important hide (and bone/antler) providers in this northern region. Other species were only available in parts of the area. For example, bones from wild boar and European polecat are only found at settlements in south Norway, and badger and red and roe deer are found up to 60°N. One of the general observations that can be made from the compilation is that a large variety of small and medium-sized species, such as otter, beaver, fox, hare, marten, squirrel, weasel, and polecat are found at several sites. Among larger fur-bearing terrestrial animals, regularly accounted are also several predators, including wolf, wolverine, lynx, badger, and dog. Although hare, otter, beaver, and squirrel were probably also eaten, most of these animals must solely or primarily have been sought for their fur, and the presence of bones indicates some kind of hide work.

Table 1 demonstrates marked differences between sites when it comes to species variability. Despite the diverse coastal topography including water bodies restricting land animal mobility, bones from a number of forest and mountain animals are identified on several of the outer coast sites. Evidently, fur-bearing terrestrial mammals – or at least parts of them – were brought to Stone Age forager sites far outside their natural habitats. Local availability of specific hide- or fur providing animals may have been considered as a settlement location factor, but the variation may be a result not only of local availability of live animals in a given season, but also of differences in hide processing and manufacturing activities between the case study sites. Brown bear, a potential provider of fur, meat, and other materials, is among the species commonly identified. Many sites only include teeth, a situation which suggests a human-animal relationship of an ontological character more than a practical one.

3.3 Case Study Sites

The general similarities and variations demonstrated in Table 1 need to be investigated on a site-specific level. In the following section, faunal and artefact material from nine selected radiocarbon dated case study sites are discussed in relation to hide processing and manufacture (Figure 2). Presented in geographical order from southeast moving west and north-westwards, these are chosen as representatives of habitation sites from different parts of coastal Norway, and of various site types. Four are rockshelters/caves (Vistehola, Sævarhelleren, Storbåthallaren, and Stiurhelleren), three are open-air settlement sites (Slettabø, Auve, and Kotedalen, the last represented by two chronologically and topographically separate areas), and two are house-pit sites (Iversfjord and Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest, the last one represented by two houses with middens). The sites were excavated between 1907 and 2006, and thus display varying documentation methods and quality. Hunter-gatherer layers are radiocarbon dated between c. 7300 BC and c. 1000 BC (Table 3). Several of the sites are multi-phased, with upper layers containing bones of domesticated animals and/or cultigens. Access to sheep wool and thus textiles is considered to have fundamentally altered humans’ ultimate need for wild animal hides. These younger contexts are thus omitted when possible.

4.1 Indications of Hide-Processing in the Osseous Remains

At all the case-study sites, varieties of fish, marine mammals, as well as mostly aquatic birds prevail in the faunal material (Table 1). Marine mammals were probably hunted partly for their hide. The presence of larger amounts of seal and whale bones at several of the settlements suggests that whale and larger seals were hunted and flensed relatively close. Since one would expect at least most of the larger, heavy bones to be left at the specific killing and flensing site, seal seem to have been intensively hunted in close proximity to Auve, Storbåthalleren, Iversfjord, Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest, and Sævarhelleren, and possibly also at Kotedalen, here with an intensification in the southern area towards the later phases. Locally available pup seals seem to have been a particularly attractive resource at Storbåthallaren, whereas seal hunting was marginal at Slettabø.

Bones from large ungulates are commonly found, reindeer are almost omnipresent at the sites in northernmost Norway, red and roe deer bones are commonly identified in the middle and southern parts, and elk bones are sporadically found in the whole area. The animals could have been encountered by hunters as individuals or in herds depending on season, and at varying distances from the settlement sites. Thule hunters in Greenland are known to walk long distances to find caribou, to cut up the animal for transport and to travel in groups to divide the heavy weight of the dead animal (Pasda, 2019, p. 112). Having the opportunity to collect a heavy corpse by boat or sledge eases transport substantially (Sharp & Sharp, 2015), and killed animals may have been transported over some distances, with at least some of the bones attached, to the settlements.

Several of the case study sites demonstrate a conspicuously high variety of species in small and fur-bearing mammals, in particular at Vistehola, Sævarhelleren, Kotedalen (north), Stiurhelleren, and Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest. All these have five to six different species present (Figure 3). In addition, two species of fur-bearing larger predators, i.e. other animals without food value, are represented at Vistehola and Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest houses 3 and 4. Slettabø, on the other hand, has few hide providers of any kind represented in the preserved osseous material. Bones from smaller and primarily potential fur-providing animals, particularly when the species are in large numbers or in great variety, suggest local availability. Standing out from the general picture, the midden at Iversfjord hardly had any osseous material from fur-bearing terrestrial mammals, except from a relatively high proportion but yet small inclusion of reindeer, with the majority of mammal bones from seal. Storbåthallaren has bones from remarkably many and diverse hide- and fur-bearing animals considering its outer coast environment, but a large number of seal pups, which were probably present in the local seascape, suggest they were one of the dwelling location factors. The site could be oriented specifically towards seasonal seal and small whale encounters. Otter, frequently found at Stone Age coastal settlements in Norway and with fish-rich currents as their natural habitat (Hufthammer, 1992, p. 56), obviously was a valued prey among other places at Kotedalen, probably also for its fur. Access to specific types or qualities of hides may have been even more significant than big game hunting or large-scale fishing for food for (a) period(s) of the year. Environments with high potential for encounter situations with specific hide and fur animals should be considered to have been a seasonally dependent dwelling location factor.

Figure 3

Diagram showing variations in number of terrestrial fur-bearing mammals at the case study sites, arranged north (top) – south (bottom). Animal species are sorted according to size and combined value as fur/hide- and meat-provider. Larger predators: wolf, wolverine, lynx, and badger (n = 4); Larger fur- and meat-providers: reindeer, red deer, roe deer, elk, brown bear, beaver, and wild boar (n = 7); Small fur-providers: otter, hare, red fox, Arctic fox, weasel, squirrel, polecat, and marten (n = 8).

However, with the ethnographic information in mind, the bones at the Stone Age hunter-gatherer sites should not merely be seen as reflections of locally available resources. They should instead be viewed as the result of careful and conscious selection of animals as raw materials, a selection process in which easy or plentiful access was probably merely one of several parameters considered. The animals not only include large key multi-resource (potentially hide, meat, bone, fat, and intestines) providers, such as ungulates, seal, and small whale, but also fur-bearing predators and small fur-bearing animals, species which have received little attention in the archaeological literature. The presence of reindeer, red deer, bear, and beaver bones at the outer coast Storbåthallaren case study site and the large number of beaver bones at coastal Auve provide evidence that at least parts of specific fur-bearing animals were brought to dwelling sites far from their natural living environments. Osseous material found far outside the animals’ natural habitats is indicated also for other sites listed in Table 1. Based on this evidence and in line with circumpolar ethnography, hide work can be suggested to have represented an important and intricate web of human-animal entanglements during the Mesolithic in coastal Norway. Different hides and furs not only had variable material, but probably also cultural and human-animal ontological, properties. Obtaining the necessary raw materials for clothes and other items required hunting and dwelling scheduling.

In addition to the basic need for hides, ethnographic records on hide processing and use inform us that fat, brain, and intestines were used in tanning, bones were used for a variety of hide processing and manufacturing of tools, and sinew was used for thread. This suggests that an interpretation of bones from various hide- or fur-bearing animals as remains from at least initial hide processing should be considered for all the case study sites.

4.2 Tools Involved in Hide Work

Ensuring high quality in hide preparation was of vital importance to a hunter-gatherer community, and moose hunting and processing toolkits used among the Khanty and Dénesuliné, respectively, included a number of implements (Glavatskaya, 2006, Table 5.3.; Jarvenpa & Brumbach, 2006b, pp. 63, 65–67). Many were made of bone or antler. The generally unfavourable preservation conditions in coastal Norway have left us with a meagre bone and antler tool inventory, and in addition, due to inconspicuous appearances and fragmented states, bone tools that may be associated with hide-craft are probably severely underrepresented compared to lithic tools. There are fundamental geographical differences in lithic technology during the Stone Age in Norway. Although formal tool types vary within the study area and lithic tools are of different materials and produced through different reduction methods, the general tool categories mostly offer the same functions in relation to hide working. All case study sites thus include lithic tool types that can be associated with hide processing. It is difficult from the inventory lists to suggest intensive or specific hide-processing activities except in cases where tools are reported to be found in particularly high numbers or in spatial concentrations. However, even general information suggests hide work activities.

Sharp cutting edges were necessary at different stages of hide processing, first, during the initial skinning of the killed animal, later to cut processed hide and skin during fitting of pieces to make items. Formal knives (Helskog et al. 1976, pp. 34–35), as well as slotted bone points (Yi et al., 2013), blades, and informal sharp-edged flakes may be considered as precise cutting tools for hide work. Formal flint knives or blades with worked edges are reported from most of the southern Norway case study sites in layers dated later than c. 4000/3500 BC, although in relatively small numbers, and earlier layers include microblades (Lund, 1951; Olsen, 1992; Østmo, 2008; Skjølsvold, 1977; Eigeland 2015; Solheim, 2012). Together with the osseous materials, the knives may point to initial skinning.

Ground slate knives are one of the most prevalent functional tool types in the north Norwegian Stone Age from around 5200/5000 BC (Jørgensen, 2021). They are primarily seen in relation to a marine fishing and hunting economy where they not only served as fish flensing knives, but also as mammal skinning tools, cutting tools, as part of larger hide-processing tool kits, or as multi-purpose tools (Andreassen 1985, pp. 202–205; Brøgger, 1909, p. 144; Clark, 1982, p. 113; Fitzhugh, 1974; Gjessing, 1942, p. 98; Helskog, 1983, pp. 93, 192). Because of their assumed relation to hide-work, they will receive some extra attention here. According to Fitzhugh (1974), the ground slate edges are less likely to damage hides during flensing, whereas the knives’ function as precise cutting tool has been questioned (Andreassen, 1985, p. 201). Slate can be worked and repeatedly re-shaped and re-sharpened into even edged and durable blunt edges, and strong similarities between ground slate and bone tool forms, and slate and bone shaping techniques, have been pointed out (Clark, 1982; Fitzhugh, 1974). Ground slate knives vary considerably in shape and size, from double to single edged and from just a few cm to over 30 cm in length. Functional differentiations based mainly on size have been suggested, the larger knives being marine flensing knives and the smallest used for making hide clothing or straps, alternatively they were used by children (Andreassen, 1985, p. 203). No typological studies have been undertaken on the extensive north Norwegian material, but local, regional, temporal as well as functionally related variation should be expected (Gjessing, 1942; Søborg, 1986). Polished slate knives and preforms evidencing on-site production are found at all the northern Norway case study sites. A high number of mostly fragmented knives and preforms are identified in the midden at Iversfjord (Helskog, 1983, p. 67), together with large quantities of seal and small whale bones. Numerous “miniature” knives (Figure 4), defined as 7 cm or less in length (Andreassen, 1985, p. 135; Simonsen, 1961, p. 374; Søborg, 1986, p. 47), larger variants, and preforms are well represented in the Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest house 4 midden (Simonsen, 1961, p. 372), the variation in knife sizes accompanying large number of bones from fur-bearing animals of different sizes (Figure 3). Storbåthallaren also has numerous slate knives in combination with bones from many and diverse hide- and fur-bearing animals. The number of knives here can, however, be misleading since, compared to Iversfjord and Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest house 4, the depositions span a much wider time frame, with artefacts having accumulated over many centuries.

Figure 4

A “miniature” slate knife and two lithic scrapers, one atypical spoon-shaped in slate and one in coarse quartz, all from Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest house 4. Photo by M. Karlstad, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

Lithic scrapers are commonly related to hide-work. Typically retouched to create an extremely angled and thus strong edge at the distal end or along the side of a blade or flake (Helskog, Indrelid, & Mikkelsen, 1976), scrapers were used throughout the Norwegian Stone Age. They were made of hard materials such as quartz, quartzite, and chert (primarily in north Norway) or flint (primarily in south Norway). End- or side-scrapers were probably shafted into composite tools. Little has been done in terms of use-wear analysis on Norwegian Mesolithic material and hide processing has not been identified (Nærøy, 1998), but in addition to ethnographic accounts, various technical analyses have provided significant information on their role in skinning and hide processing (e.g., Broadbent & Knutsson, 1975; Gallagher, 1977; Keeley, 1980; Nissen & Dittemore, 1974; Steinbring, 1966, p. 577; Takase, 2010; Tringham, Cooper, Odell, Voytek, & Whitman, 1974; Yerkes, Barkai, Gopher, & Zutovski, 2016).

The number of scrapers differ significantly between the case-study sites. A high number is noted at Slettabø (Skjølsvold, 1977, p. 51) and scrapers are among the relatively few lithic tools found in Sævarhelleren (Bergsvik & David, 2015, Table 2), whereas only a few were found in Vistehola (Lund, 1951) and in the midden at Iversfjord (Helskog, 1983). According to find tables, there were none at Stiurhelleren and Storbåthallaren (Hultgreen, 1988; Utne, 1973). At Kotedalen, scrapers are associated with the younger phase (Olsen, 1992), which means they are contemporary with intensified seal hunting. At Auve, the 34 flint scrapers were confined to specific parts of the site, 14 of them within one small area (Østmo, 2008, p. 85). A comparison of the general distributions of bone waste material and scrapers (Hufthammer, 1997, Figures 2, 4, 5, and 7–13; Østmo, 2008, Figure 75) shows spatial overlap, particularly between scrapers and seal, porpoise, otter, and beaver bones. This may suggest that scrapers were used for initial cleaning and scraping of tissues from fresh hides, from marine as well as terrestrial animals. Spatial distributions are not published for any of the other case study sites, but the varying number of scrapers reported should at least be considered as indicative of different hide processing activities conducted at different sites or parts of sites, at different times and with variable intensity.

Rubbing, softening, and seam-flattening tools may be difficult to identify in an archaeological material. In ethnographic records people primarily are described as using their hands, feet, and teeth to rub and soften hides, and regular heavy teeth wear on Mesolithic skeletons (Grünberg, 2016) can be interpreted in this context. Experimental archaeology has shown that removing tissue from hides by rubbing them with granular abrading stones and water produces distinct chemical and physical use-wear patterns on the stone surface (Adams, 2014). No studies have been undertaken on a Norwegian material. Ethnographic examples show that granular handstones rough enough to abrade a softer contact surface are often preferred. Pumice may have had this quality, but typically only pieces with clear furrows assumed to be from slate, bone, or wood (arrow shaft) polishing have been collected during excavation. Pumice with narrow ground furrows may have been used to shape bone sewing needles or awls (Andreassen, 1985, p. 209). Particularly smooth pebbles that fit well into the hand are sometimes mentioned in excavation reports, but few have been collected. Four items from Iversfjord are registered as polishing and grinding stones. Pieces of pumice with wear-marks were recorded from Auve and Storbåthallaren, and one of the extremely few items at Stiurhelleren was also a piece of pumice with use-wear. At least some of the 33 polishing, grinding, and whetstones classified from houses 3 (n = 13) and 4 (n = 20) at Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest could be handstones related to hide processing.

Formal bone or antler tools that can be associated with hide work are reported from most of the case study sites, although few in number at some (Table 4). According to ethnographic record and experimental study, scraping tools or “chisels” typically made of full-length leg bones of large ungulates or ribs should be considered as hide preparation tools (Christidou & Legrand-Pineau, 2005; Steinbring, 1966). These can have a straight, concave or even convex, and toothed working edge. Bone and antler scraping tools of various types are documented in exceptionally high numbers at Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest houses 3 and 4 (Simonsen, 1961) (Table 3, Figure 5). Many are heavily worn and fragmented. Similar tools described in ethnographic records are mainly related not only to the initial defleshing, dehairing, and softening stages of fresh and wet hide processing but also to membraning and wringing. Due to inconspicuous appearances and fragmented states, bone scrapers are probably severely underidentified in Norwegian Stone Age archaeology.

Figure 6 shows awls and needles representing the last stages of hide work, with awls used for drilling even holes for lashes or thread and needles for sewing new, and maintaining existing, items. Although preservation conditions probably play a part in the number of small bone implements identified, the variation between the case study sites could point to activity differences, with some sites being sewing camps where people made and maintained hide and skin items during a settled period of the year. Vistehola, both areas at Kotedalen and Storbåthallaren, and in particular the case study houses at Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest all have high number of awls (Table 3). These are reported to be made from split bird or slim mammal bones. At all four sites, the many awls are found together with osseous materials from a variety of hide- and fur-bearing animals. At the two Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest houses, more than 30 awls per house are accompanied by around 20 small, slim (less than 2 mm wide) sewing needles with cut-out holes in the top (Figure 6). As already discussed, the high number of needles and awls here are found together with numerous bone scrapers and slate knives of various sizes. Preparing different hides and sewing clothes which included fur from various fur-bearing animals seems to have been a major activity, and seemingly, the whole chain of hide work activities, from the initial flensing of animals to the finishing of items took place here. A high number of awls in combination with sewing needles may also be the case for Kotedalen, but here fragmentation is so high that only approximately 50% of all bone tools are classified, and needles and awls are not functionally divided (Olsen, 1992, p. 160). The variety of fur-bearing animals identified, and the particularly high proportion of otter remains may suggest that among other activities, sewing of new hide and fur items took place. At Vistehola and Storbåthallaren, large numbers of awls are found together with only one or two needles. However, given that the osseous materials from both includes several fur-bearing and even non-local animals, it cannot be ruled out that here also sewing was one of the (main) seasonal activities.

Figure 5

A bone-end-scraper from Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest house 4 and two side-scrapers from house 3, all with heavy wear-marks and made of reindeer long-bone. Photo by M. Karlstad, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

A final tool category which deserves mentioning in relation to hide work is combs. Elaborate, sculptured, and pattern-incised combs from Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest and similar adjacent sites in Varanger are seen as purely decorative items (Myrvoll, 1992; Olsen, 1994; Schanche, 1994; Simonsen, 1961). However, a mostly overlooked, simpler, and undecorated comb type (Figure 7) bears a strong resemblance to ethnographic sinew-splitting tools. It may thus be suggested that these were used to make sinew thread. If this interpretation is correct it adds to the impression of Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest as – among other things – a sewing site.

Figure 6

Bone sewing needles with perforated holes and a bone awl, all from Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest house 4. Photo by M. Karlstad, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

Figure 7

Bone comb, possibly used to split sinew into thin thread, from Rissebávti/Gressbakken Nedre Vest house 4. Photo by M. Karlstad, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.