Generation Stone Age

Norway was once covered with ice. As the ice melted, islands, beaches, fjords and valleys appeared – and people followed.

People in the Stone Age were similar to us; they had the same physical attributes and were intelligent. But they used different tools and had different ideas about life and the world.

Over 300 Stone Age generations and 8000 years, nature, climate and landscape changed dramatically. New plants and animals arrived, and people found new ways to get food, build homes and organise their lives.

An exhibition in three lives

Generation Stone Age centres on three main characters: Sol, Svane and Rav. Their stories are based on archaeological finds from the Stone Age. Objects recovered from bogs, the seabed and melting snowfields give insight into beliefs, rituals and everyday life. Here you can follow how culture and society develop, from nomadic hunters and gatherers to more settled farmers.

Sol is the name given to Norway’s oldest known skeleton, dating from around 7500 BC. She was found in Søgne in Agder County in 1994. She was a woman who lived to be 35–40 years old and was about 155 cm tall. What does her DNA tell us about what she ate, what she looked like, and how people migrated to Norway after the Ice Age? Sol’s skull is on display in the exhibition.

You will also see a varied selection of objects and tools used for fishing and hunting: beautiful arrowheads, hatches and harpoons. Many are so finely made that they reveal people who didn’t only need a practical tool – but a beautiful one. Visitors can touch some of the objects.

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The 10‑year‑old Svane tells the story of life in the middle part of the Stone Age in Norway. By now, people were building dwellings they could live in for a long time, or return to again and again, and were exploring forests, fjords and animal trails with increasingly sophisticated ways of hunting, fishing and gathering.

Rav is our name for the farmer and hunter from the later Stone Age. Farming had now reached Norway, but people still lived largely by hunting, gathering, and fishing. It would be many hundreds of years before farming became the most important way to obtain food.

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Experience the Stone Age up close

Generation Stone Age is designed for curious visitors of all ages.

Children and families can immerse themselves in the stories of Sol, Svane and Rav, and recognise elements from their own lives – like losing something valuable, going on a fishing trip or hiking in the mountains.

Adults and enthusiasts will find rich detail on migration, technology, trade, and the rise of agriculture, and see how ongoing research – including DNA and chemical analyses – keeps giving us new answers about prehistory.

Throughout the exhibition, encounters between people, journeys and everyday life are at the centre. We hope you leave with a new understanding of the Stone Age – not as a distant, primitive time, but as a long and diverse era shaped by people who were not so different from ourselves.

Venus from Svinesund – a fertility goddess?

This small object, barely 4 cm tall, may have been a fertility symbol. Such symbols are called Venus figurines, a collective term for small sculptures of female bodies from Stone Age Europe.

• Read more about Venus from Svinesund