Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Early and mid-Holocene coastal settlement and demography in southeastern Norway: Comparing distribution of radiocarbon dates and shoreline-dated sites, 8500–2000 cal. BCE Steinar Solheim ⁎ , Per Persson Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, PB 6762 St. Olavs plass, 0130 Oslo, Norway ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Southeastern Norway Demography Settlement intensity Coastal regions Mesolithic ABSTRACT In this paper we explore temporal variation in demography and settlement intensity in southeastern Norway during the Early and mid-Holocene. In order to investigate the temporal variation in demography and settlement we have applied and compared two different proxies: Summed radiocarbon probability distributions and site count data of shoreline-dated sites. The proxies display similar patterns, and we suggest that they indicate stability in settlement in the coastal areas of southeastern Norway between 8500 cal. BCE and 2000 cal. BCE. 1. Introduction The Oslo fjord region of southeastern Norway has unique qualities for studying long-term changes and continuity in coastal settlement during the Holocene. The large and continuous post-glacial land up- heaval has caused shore bound sites from all prehistoric periods to be located above the present-day sea level. During the Younger Dryas most of southeastern Norway was covered with ice and the region was not colonised and settled before c. 9300 cal. BCE (Damlien and Solheim, 2017; Glørstad, 2016: 14; Jaksland, 2014: 43–46). A common percep- tion is that the earliest settlement sites were sparse and traces of a highly mobile population (Bjerck, 2009; Jaksland, 2001: 116–118), followed by a growth in population during the Mesolithic reaching a peak in the Late Mesolithic (Jaksland, 2001: 118). This is however not based on thorough investigations of temporal variation of settlement intensity or demography. In this paper we challenge this view by using radiocarbon dates and shoreline-dated sites to investigate variation in demography coastal settlement in southeastern Norway from the Middle Mesolithic to the Late Neolithic periods (8500–2000 cal. BCE; Fig. 1). During the last decade population dynamics and demographic var- iation in Mesolithic and Neolithic societies have been thoroughly in- vestigated by using summed radiocarbon probability plots as a popu- lation proxy (Apel et al., 2017; Edinborough, 2009; Hinz et al., 2012; Shennan et al., 2013; Shennan and Edinborough, 2007; Timpson et al., 2014). The scopes of the studies are impressive and the methods and models applied to investigate demographic variation are becoming increasingly complex (Edinborough et al., 2017:1–2 for overview of development; Shennan et al., 2013; Timpson et al., 2014). Basically, reconstructions of prehistoric demography are based on temporal distribution of radiocarbon dates, which are used as a proxy of variation in human activity through time. Several researchers have emphasized the problems of using radiocarbon data alone to infer de- mographic variation and noted the need for other proxies to compare with the radiocarbon probability plots (Crombé and Robinson, 2014; Hinz et al., 2012; Surovell and Brantingham, 2007; Tallavaara et al., 2010; Torfing, 2015; Williams, 2012; but see Edinborough et al., 2017). Both human factors and systematic errors are pointed out as potential biases (Torfing, 2015:193; Williams, 2012:579; c.f. Timpson et al., 2015). One suggested approach to test if variations in radiocarbon plots are related to human activity is to compare radiocarbon plots with paleoenvironmental data, such as pollen analysis or climate data (Hinz et al., 2012; Wicks and Mithen, 2014). A second possible approach for investigating whether a set of radiocarbon dates is biased is by com- paring radiocarbon plots and archaeological site counts (French and Collins, 2015; Palmisano et al., 2017; Tallavaara et al., 2010). Following this approach we will compare the available radiocarbon data with other archaeological proxy data in order to study the coastal population and settlement around the Oslo fjord in southeastern Norway. In order to carry out this approach we will use summed radiocarbon probability distribution, and site-counts of shoreline-dated sites from three different subareas in this region. The main aim is to investigate variation in demography and set- tlement intensity in the Oslo fjord region from c. 8500 to 2000 cal. BCE. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.03.007 Received 12 September 2017; Received in revised form 28 February 2018; Accepted 6 March 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: steinar.solheim@khm.uio.no (S. Solheim), p.a.persson@khm.uio.no (P. Persson). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 19 (2018) 334–343 2352-409X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T