The seashore – beyond monumentality : the case of Pitted Ware coastal sites in southern Sweden

What is the significance of a place at the seashore? What kind of a sense of place does a place by the seashore constitute in the absence of any kind of monumental structures? Today, it is obvious within the archaeological domain that archaeological material culture is not only functional, but also acts as a metaphor for people’s self-perception. In this article, my assumption is that the different archaeo- logical cultural groups in southern Sweden during the Neolithic represent different social identities and lifestyles. As a result of this, both rival and syncretic cultural encounters existed in the past. Different cultural identities are dependent on scale, very local or regional in Scandinavia, as in other parts of Europe. Undoubtedly, processes of creoli- zation occurred between groups of people and can perhaps be understood in terms of processes of domination and competition. The character of the archaeological material culture indicates a highly power-structured mentality in the Neolithic. In the case study outlined here, the location of the Pitted Ware sites at Jonstorp in the north-western part of Scania in southern Sweden far away from the monumental landscape further south in Scania is the starting point for a discussion of Neolithic coastal sites and seashores