Project description
The shift from foraging to farming in southern Scandinavia
Understanding early food system adaptation provides vital lessons for tackling today’s climate-driven food insecurity. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SHARE project maps food resource and landscape management in southern Scandinavia’s Mesolithic societies prior to farming. It analyses archaeological pit deposits and surrounding wetland sediments, and it uses micro-analytical archaeology and luminescence dating to detect signs of plant use, soil modification and early landscape management. It will combine chemical, molecular and microstructural information from directly dated deposits in order to re-evaluate the extent to which these populations had started to manipulate ecosystems that had been considered the prerogative of agricultural societies.
Objective
The proposal addresses the critical need to understand past food systems in the face of climate change-driven food insecurity by exploring the transition from foraging to farming in Southern Scandinavia. Challenging the 'Neolithic Revolution' paradigm as a sudden shift to a farming diet occurring in the Neolithic, the project investigates whether Mesolithic Ertebølle societies (7,400–5,900 BP) intentionally managed pit deposits as anthropogenic soils for plant-use and landscape management before the spread of agriculture. Archaeological records indicate that these foragers created surplus-producing, semi-sedentary communities with a diet more reliant on terrestrial plants than previously thought. These settlements feature numerous anthropogenic pit deposits, rich in organic waste, which are traditionally interpreted as middens.
Using cutting-edge micro-analytical archaeology and luminescence dating, SHARE (Soil and Human Archives of early food Resilience and Environmental modification) will analyse midden composition and linked wetland sediments to uncover human-induced soil modifications and plant-management strategies across the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. This interdisciplinary approach, integrating microstructural, chemical, and molecular evidence from directly dated archaeological soils, aims to reveal contextual and in situ evidence of landscape modification and subsistence strategies amid the forage-to-farming transition and their long-term environmental impacts. Through planned secondments at world-class institutes of geoscience and molecular archaeology, the fellow will gain advanced technical skills and expand collaborative networks, positioning him as a leader in reconstructing past human-environment dynamics. SHARE seeks to challenge canonical assumptions about human-plant interactions and the emergence of food production in human prehistory, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between archaeology and geoscience.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history prehistory
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.