Cracked chert from fire setting. Photo: Per Storemyr

Recently I posted a preliminary report on our successful experiments with fire setting in the Melsvik Stone Age chert quarries in Northern Norway. For some curious reason German-speaking readers were not able to watch the attached video of the experiments, perhaps due to country-specific copyright infringements related to the music in the video. Sadly, “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash is obviously not for all! But here’s another version of the video, this time without good old Johnny: Burning Rock. Experiments with fire setting (without music). And there is more for my German-speaking readers; a recent article in Spiegel Online, based on my original story and written by Angelika Franz: Werkzeuge bauen wie die Steinzeitler. The fire setting experiments were carried out within the Melsvik archaeological rescue project/excavations, headed by Anja Roth Niemi of the University Museum at Tromsø. More about the project, with many links, maps and references, in these blog posts:

• Burning rock! Experiments with fire setting at the Stone Age Melsvik chert quarries in Northern Norway
• Firesetting in the Stone Age chert quarries at Melsvik in Northern Norway?