Hunting, fishing, gardening: Re-evaluating Middle Neolithic mobility and cultural diversity on the Norwegian Skagerrak coast

•Prehistoric landscapes are reconstructed from lake basins and archaeological sites.•Neolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers in Norway grew barley and wheat.•Lipids from pottery show consumption of marine and terrestrial food sources.•Bone assemblages show consumption of fish, birds, and wild and domesticated mammals. The settlements along the Norwegian Skagerrak coast from the period 3300–2350 cal. BCE (Middle Neolithic period) represented an epitome of the sub-Neolithicphenomenon, however, recent experience from archaeological, osteological,palynological, and geological studies encourages a rethinking of this cultural complex. Here we reconstruct aspects of Middle Neolithic economies, mobility patterns, and pottery production traditions based on recent field work along the central stretch of the Norwegian Skagerrak coast. We find evidence of mixed economies – collecting, fishing, hunting, farming, husbandry – and local pottery traditions structured by seasonal coastal-inland mobility patterns. We propose a redefinition of this archaeological complex from a ‘Neolithic culture’, or a sub-Neolithic phenomenon, to an ecohistorical regime. The diversity in mobility and subsistence in this geographical area reflect robust early fisher-farmer societies resilient in the face of environmental variations.