quaternary Article Shoreline Displacement, Coastal Environments and Human Subsistence in the Hanö Bay Region during The Mesolithic Anton Hansson 1,*, Adam Boethius 2 , Dan Hammarlund 1 , Per Lagerås 3, Ola Magnell 3, Björn Nilsson 2, Anette Nilsson Brunlid 1 and Mats Rundgren 1 1 Department of Geology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, 223 62 Lund, Sweden;
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[email protected] (B.N.) 3 The Archaeologists, National Historical Museums, Odlarevägen 5, 226 60 Lund, Sweden;
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[email protected] Received: 18 December 2018; Accepted: 11 March 2019; Published: 19 March 2019 Abstract: Southern Scandinavia experienced significant environmental changes during the early Holocene. Shoreline displacement reconstructions and results from several zooarchaeological studies were used to describe the environmental changes and the associated human subsistence and settlement development in the Hanö Bay region of southern Sweden during the Mesolithic. GIS-based palaeogeographic reconstructions building on shoreline displacement records from eastern Skåne and western Blekinge together with a sediment sequence from an infilled coastal lake were used to describe the environmental changes during five key periods. The results show a rapid transformation of the coastal landscape during the Mesolithic. During this time, the investigated coastal settlements indicate a shift towards a more sedentary lifestyle and a subsistence focused on large-scale freshwater fishing.