Northern icescapes - barrier or bridge? On sea ice, marine foraging and the colonization of the Scandinavian seascapes

The paper explores the role of the Northern Sea-Ice and its potential for subsistence strategies for the humans that inhabited the northern part of the continental plains in the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. The North Sea sea-ice lingered for a large part of the year (late winter-spring) { a prosperous habitat where marine resources could be accessed without a fully developed marine technology (boats). Naturally, archaeological evidence from human sea-ice activities is expected to be next to non-existing { but this does not necessarily mean that Late Pleistocene sea-ice hunting never happened. The paper explores this possibility, and its potential consequences for the development of northern marine foraging and the col- onization of Scandinavian seascapes.