01 Forhistoriske steinbrudd

01 01 For hunting and everyday life

People hunted reindeer, elk, and bears, using spears or bow and arrow. They attached the chert arrowheads and spearheads to the shafts with tendons and resin. Chert knives were used to slaughter animals, and cut their skins into clothes and skin boats. Scrapers made of chert removed meat and fat from the skins.

02 02 Can stones float?

On Finnmark’s beaches people found strange little stones. It was pumice from Iceland’s volcanoes that came floating in with the Gulf stream. Inside, the pumice stones had air-filled cavities that enabled them to float on water. Pumice was used for sharpening slate utensils and burnishing wooden arrow shafts.

03 03 Slate tools

Copies of findings. The dagger with a small elk head is from Sirdagoppe in Varanger. The replicas were made by Morten Kutschera.

04 04 The Kalkillebukt pot

A clay pot was found right under the turf of a 3,500-year-old house foundation in Varanger. The location of the shards suggests the pot was intact when it was first placed there. This is very rare finding. This copy of the Kalkillebukt pot was made by Morten Kutschera’s Prehistoric Arts & Crafts.

05 05 Raw asbestos

What is asbestos? Asbestos is a collective name for several fibrous and supple minerals. It is found in Alta’s bedrock, often next to soapstone, dolomite and chert.

06 06 A thousand pieces

Thousands of asbestos fragments have been found in settlements across much of Norway. These were discovered in Finnmark. Although asbestos made the ceramics stronger it was brittle and broke easily. The pots must therefore have been impractical for nomadic hunter-gatherers. The white threads are the asbestos. The holes may have been intended for both decoration and hanging.