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Flint was one of the most widely employed raw materials for artefact manufacture in Denmark and Sweden during the Stone Age, and it continued to be used during subsequent periods. Prehistoric flint mining and lithic manufacturing studies in these countries have attracted considerable attention, but there have been no recent attempts to chemically characterize the geological source materials. This paper builds on a pilot study (Hughes et al. 2010) and uses energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis to determine quantitative composition estimates for nine major, minor and certain trace elements in seven archaeologically significant flint sources in Denmark and Sweden, along with new data on a number of other sources of prehistoric significance. These data provide a geochemical foundation for ongoing research devoted to determining contrasts and continuities in the time and space utilization of flint sources in Scandinavian prehistory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Younger Dryas (YD) cold event was discovered in Denmark by Hartz and Mithers in 1904 and the term coined by Hartz in 1912. It was identified as a lacustrine clay bed containing plant macrofossils of an Arctic flora, including Dryas octopetala, and lying between Allerød and Holocene gyttjas containing a warmer flora with birch trees. The YD is unique in the sense that it is the largest and most abrupt climate change on Earth since the Last Glacial Maximum and thus within the reach of radiocarbon dating. Yet, I consider it is part of a regular Dansgaard‐Oeschger event. The term has been used for a climate event and for lithostratigraphical, biostratigraphical and several other stratigraphical units. I prefer using it as a geochronological and chronostratigraphical unit, i.e. that the YD represents a specific period of geological time and the rocks and sediments formed during this period. In the type area of southern Scandinavia, the YD chron represents the age and duration of the cold event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the change in subsistence at the Mesolithic and Neolithic transition in Denmark. The late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in Denmark and the important characteristics of the transition are discussed in the article. The article also focuses on new nitrogen and carbon stable isotope values and radiocarbon dates for Mesolithic and Neolithic humans of Denmark. Stable isotope measurement of human bone shows that Mesolithic diets were based on marine and Neolithic diets were based on earth.