European Stone Age gathering ’19: A week of Mesolithic living in Ertebølle

Every year, Stone Age enthusiasts from all over the world meet up for a week of Mesolithic living in a Stone Age inspired environment. This year, the annual European Stone Age Gathering was held in the new open air museum in Ertebølle, North Juland, just a two-hour drive from my childhood home. I’ve attended similar smaller gatherings in Lejre in the past, but this was my first time attending the official gathering, so I was very excited!

I travelled to North Jutland one day before the gathering with my family and friend Solveig, to visit my dad’s aunt Ninna in Skals. Skals is only 35 km from Ertebølle, and Ninna had been so kind to let Solveig and I stay with her for the night and then borrow her car for the week. We left the next morning to Ertebølle, excited for the wonderful week ahead of us, but unfortunately things didn’t go quite as planned. I punctured a tyre (oooops) and spent the next hour or so dealing with how to fix it. Ninna’s son-in-law Ivan and my dad’s uncle’s brother Børge came to our rescue a few days later and got in contact with a mechanic who fixed it.

Thankfully, the rest of the week went pretty smoothly. For the following seven days, I was living the hunter/gatherer way of life with many wonderful old and new friends, wandering about in my (terribly made) Stone Age inspired clothes and doing traditional crafts, while enjoying being outdoors. It was wonderful to not have to think about my BA thesis for an entire week. I hadn’t brought my computer, so I had no other choice than to just forget about it temporarily, and how relaxing that was!

I’ve been to the Stone Age Centre in Ertebølle once before, but that was before the outdoor area was improved with new Mesolithic and Neolithic huts. The work actually finished just three weeks prior to the gathering. And I have to say, they have done an incredible job! With the view of the beautiful Limfjord in the backdrop, I couldn’t imagine a better place to host the gathering.

The first three days were quite hot, which proved a challenge for me. I had prepared some Stone Age inspired clothes from home, made from thrifted cut-up leather jackets as I don’t want to support the leather industry. It could’ve been fine had my sewing skills not been an absolute joke, so I felt very silly in my ugly clothes amongst all these other beautifully dressed Stone Age enthusiasts. So on the first day, I went to the local thrift store and luckily found a long and warm leather/fur coat and a fake suede suit which I cut up and sewed into a summer outfit.

The next few days were spent perfecting the summer outfit, creating beautiful accessories and preparing for the first annual Stone Age fashion show, an idea that Solveig and I had come up with! One evening, a bunch of us went down to the beautiful beach in Ertebølle to watch the sun set over the calm ocean. A perfect evening.

The weather cooled down on the Thursday and gave us two days with on and off rain and one heavy downpour. I was so relieved that my tent survived! Despite the rain, tourists still flocked to the open air museum – needless to say, the gathering was a huge success for the museum!

Friday evening was my favourite evening of all! We had the first annual fashion show, where people had to come up with a unique outfit made of only Stone Age materials (well.. apart from those that came as time travellers!). It was absolutely genius with 14 brilliant and unique acts! We even had a music group that played Stone Age instruments and personalized the music for every act!

I was the host so I didn’t join in (okay that was mainly because I can’t sew to save my life…), but I had a lot of fun hosting. It was such a great evening and the show was a huge succes, even our Neolithic guests from the Hjerl Hede open air museum loved it. That evening was actually the first time ever that our two groups had come together! It was as though an enemy tribe had entered our territory. Haha, no in reality I thought it was amazing that they took time to join us, and it was just so lucky that it was for the evening of the fashion show!

The weekend was equally eventful. The hot weather came back and the tourists continued to flock in. I invited my dad’s aunt to visit us and then picked her up in Skals and drove her back again after a wonderful day together. I really enjoyed spending quality time with her and it was lovely to see how much she enjoyed the gathering!

On the Sunday, it was time for me and many others to leave, but I couldn’t leave without doing something crazy. So I got a tattoo. Literally. Well, it isn’t that visible now as we couldn’t quite get the technique right. It was done by Niels and Miika using flint and charcoal mixed with alcohol. I hope we can figure out how to perfect the technique before next year, so I can get it made more visible!

After the tattooing session, it was time for me to leave. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but thankfully these annual gatherings will continue! I’m already so excited for next year’s gathering in the Netherlands!