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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

🏵️ ❗ 🧠 🖌️ 📝 'Cognitive affordances of South Scandinavian Mesolithic portable art as inferred from complexity and entropy measures' ➡️ doi.org/10.1016/j.ja... I have invested sooo much energy on this paper, so I hope you will give it a skim Our findings expertly summarised here by co-author Riccardo:

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

My shout-out on #InternationalWomensDay goes to Elsie Hultén, one of the earliest proponents of Mesolithic art having magical functions. To this day, her 1939 article 'Magiska Ornament i Mesoliticum?' remains one of the most persuasive and empirically founded interpretations of this material.

Hultén, seated, teaching in Kamchatka. Source: https://nol21.livejournal.com/819507.html

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Today I ventured into the Maglemose heartlands and visited Holmegård Værk, where a true masterpiece of the #Mesolithic has been hiding in plain sight for sixty years. Stay tuned for the object biography 🖼️

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Just finished a well-executed #DIALPAST course on 'AI in Archaeology' in lovely Paris 🌟 GenAI & LLM ethics, AI in archaeological prospection, data mining legacy data - i understand this stuff better now. Thanks to my #phd colleagues who participated, and thanks to @uio.no for hosting DIALPAST

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

The Mesolithic people evidently depicted fish exactly as any of us would today. But what is the fish swimming towards? Could it be a net? We don't know of course, but if you were to argue for Mesolithic art as a storytelling practice, this axe from Skalstrup Mose would be relevant to bring up

Photograph of one side of the Skalstrup Mose axe (Photo: Anne Vad Christiansen, Nationalmuseet, CC-BY-SA), with close-up and redrawn detail of the fish-and-net-like engravings

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

It's not an aggressive hand gesture sent from the distant past, but rather a comb with broken-off teeth from the eponymous Ertebølle shell midden. Neergaard (1900) found the object itself to be 'probably the most charming of all the [Ertebølle] combs', but he is super underwhelmed by its decoration

Old photograph of fragmented comb, Ertebølle culture. From Madsen 'Affaldsdynger fra Stenalderen i Danmark, undersøgte for Nationalmuseet' (1900), Plate VII

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Time to update your Palaeolithic palettes... 🔵 Very proud to share our new research on the OLDEST use of blue pigment! We identified traces of azurite - a vibrant blue mineral - on a stone object around 14-13,000 years old. Why is this so exciting? 👇🏺 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

Close-up image of a sand coloured stone, with a diagonal crack. The sand rock has a textured surface, and small spots of blue can be seen towards the centre of the stone. The background is grey.

Microscopic photo of the blue spots, that are irregular in shape and size and positioned diagonally across the image. The rest of the photo shows the rough sand coloured texture of the stone.

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Back 🏡 again from #MESO2025 in Ferrara, Italy, where I finally got to meet the faces of the field. A Mesolithic-specific week like this only comes along every 5yrs, so I appreciated every minute of it. Now it's back to the Paternity bubble 🫧🌷

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

This aurochs radius mattock-head was found 100years ago 🎉 Brøndsted 1934: "... the three long lines with the transverse zigzag is an unusually precise and well-executed motif for Mesolithic ornamentation, demonstrating that the art of this period was capable of deliberately stylised geometrisation"

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

"Transgressional phases, between 10.000-7.000 BP, may have caused a certain amount of inconvenience!"

Drawn by A.Andersson, from Schmitt 1995: The West Swedish Hensbacka: a maritime adaptation and a seasonal expression of the North-Central European Ahrensburgian

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

So long and tschüss to Grabow, the iconic Late Palaeolithic amber workshop. Great campaign on all parameters, run by top-notch @au.dk @auarcher.bsky.social students 🚀

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Felix Riede @felixthehauskat.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Off to the field with @ll-herskind.bsky.social and a group of awesome students - four weeks teaching excavation and my @erc.europa.eu project CLIOARCH’s very last field season. And we’re going to excavate the world’s oldest amber art workshop from the Late Pleistocene 🤩

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Nerve-racking day of sampling from these precious artefacts, but the results will be equally invaluable. Let's get those radiocarbon dates! ⏳🦴🏺

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Take a moment to appreciate this stunning photo of a fragmented, perforated, neatly decorated artefact made from an aurochs radius ✨🏺 But how old is it, you ask? Time will tell! #archaeology

Photo: Nationalmuseet
Site: Øgårde, Zealand, DK

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I know full well that ResearchGate achievements are just a gamification gimmick that annoyingly fills our inboxes, but sometimes I have to admit it works. The 1000 "reads" of my 2023 MA thesis at least suggests that it lives its own life on the www. Wonder how many actually read the thing though

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Archaeology & Heritage, Aarhus University @auarcher.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Velkommen til vores første alumnedag på Moesgård - med bl.a. den helt store fredagsbar. Vi glæder os. Sign up here lnkd.in/dswV5fSw

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

This heavily used #Maglemose amber pendant depicts a group of people. Brinch Petersen gives a spooky interpretation: "...four geometrical and standing persons with upright arms with a fifth floating above while a severed head is being presented by the last standing figure to the right." #prehistory

From Brinch Petersen 2016: Afterlife in the Danish Mesolithic – the creation, use and discarding of »Loose Human Bones«, fig.11a-b

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

First pummeled by a wild boar, later killed and dismembered. The #Ertebølle man from Grave 13 at Skateholm had a rough life. Perhaps it would have been a comfort for him to know that, ~7000 years later, archaeologists would make a comically morbid cartoon out of it 🏺

From Larsson 1988: Ett fångstsamhälle för 7000 år sedan : boplatser och gravar i Skateholm, p.93

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Contemporary judgements of #prehistoric #art influence how we research and disseminate it. Mesolithic art has, in implicit comparison to more famous traditions, often been described as “sparse and poor, without much care… As a whole, a hasty, random frippery without independent worth or bearing”

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Mike Young @mkeyoung.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

🌍 We have just released a NEW global top 100 list of scientist and science communicators on Bluesky. @lassehjorthmadsen.bsky.social and I map out the new emerging community: How are the research fields clustered? All likes, reshares, and love 😍 is appreciated! mikeyoungacademy.dk/bluesky-is-e...

mikeyoungacademy.dk

Bluesky is emerging as the new platform for science - Mike Young Academy

Scientific Twitter is about to find its true successor. And it is not X. This, our latest release, shows that the Bluesky network of scientists is growing — and growing.

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Best article title I've seen in a while ' Megaliths ☹️ ' #academicsky #PhD

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

The Beautiful Rotten-Fish Bone-Knife: This ~9430yr-old slotted bone tool (arguably a stylized depiction of a fish/fish skeleton) from Norje Sunnansund was excavated in relation to a ditch used to store and ferment fish - the world's earliest evidence of fermentation. Swedish tradition runs deep!?🐟💚

Foto: Åke Nilsson, Blekinge museum © 2014.

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Two Mesolithic butterflies - A moment of artistic expression? Animist magic? Or a meaning-laden, communicative symbol? #StoneAge #Art #Magic #Symbolism 🏺

Photo: Nationalmuseet
Object: Snedsted NM A54533

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

One of the finer things to come out of Amager - an island otherwise known for Copenhagen's waste storage and 19th century decapitations - is this decorated axe from the middle #Kongemose, ca.6150-5800 BC 🏺 Site: Carstensminde Photo: Nationalmuseet

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Bone and antler was the common medium for #Mesolithic #Art, usually red/roe deer, wild boar & aurochs. But there are a few exotic exceptions: Surprised zoologists declared that this dagger was made from the bill of a #Swordfish. There is archaeological consensus that its owner must have had style🏺⚔️🐟

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

In South Scand. #Mesolithic imagery, human depictions are rare, but all in a similar style: geometrically stylized, always showing people in motion - and a bit ominous if you ask me 😬 Meet 'Dansarna från Bökeberg', two figures engraved on separate objects from a Swedish inland settlement. Wild stuff

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Treated myself to THE palaeontology textbook - the equally cool sister of archaeology But I fear this bookshelf addition will also add fuel to the 'digging-up-dinosaurs'-confusion among friends & family

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Mesolithic people were big on geometrics. But was this 'merely' aesthetic decoration, or were there other intended purposes? I'm working on it. #StoneAge #Art Site: Holmegård IV. Photo: Nationalmuseet

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

This was both an inspiring workshop and a fitting celebration of Kristian Tylén - I feel refueled and happy to be working in this dynamic #archaeology & #CogSci intersection 🔀. Special thanks to @izzywisher.bsky.social

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Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.eurosky.social · 10/01/2025

3rd day of "Celebrating eSYMb: The Evolution of Symbolic Behaviour - A Workshop in Memory of Kristian Tylén" workshop. Murillo Pagnotta on the makapangsat cobble: this face-like pebble is a controversial archeological finding, but can we test the idea that it's attention grabbing because of 1/

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Felix Riede @felixthehauskat.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Major JOB ALERT! I and close colleagues have 4 (!) positions open. So if you're looking for a postdoc or PhD, do read on:

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

This artefact has it all: 🔅A mattock made from the radius of an aurochs (cool animal) 🔅From Hohen Viecheln (dope site) 🔅Engraved with barbed lines (regionally distinct motif type) 🔅And and and it's radiocarbon dated (happy days) to 7937–7610 calBC 🔅Fine drawing too (Schuldt 1961)

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Faculty of Arts @arts.au.dk · 20/12/2024

“The discussion was always about how adults were teaching children,” says Izzy Wisher, an archaeologist at Aarhus University who led the new study. “This panel shows children were also doing their own thing.”

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

This diversely decorated Ertebølle red deer antler axe from Ølby Lyng wishes a Merry Christmas to all ✨

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

This amber pendant was worn around the neck of a stylish Mesolithic Doggerlander. If you think it's cute, then you are of the same opinion as Sophus Müller (1918): "This piece shows the highest, and in itself by no means poor, level reached in the oldest ornamental style of the Stone Age"

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

The oldest (to my knowledge) illustrations of Danish, decorated Mesolithic objects are AP Madsen's true masterpieces of copper plate engraving from 1868(!). Here is a cute slotted bone point from Langeland - what animal do you see?

Copper plate engraving of decorated stone age artefact

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Lasse Lukas P Herskind @ll-herskind.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Hey wouldn't it be a treat if I once a week share with you an ornamented object from the South Scandinavian Mesolithic? After all, there are so many good ones and only ≈150 weeks until planned PhD completion

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