Komsafjellet () is a mountain in
Alta Municipality
Alta (; ; ; ) is the most populated List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Finnmark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Alta (town), town of Alta. Some of the main villages in the ...
in
Finnmark
Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...
county,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
. The area has given its name to the so-called
Komsa culture
The Komsa culture () was a Mesolithic culture of hunter-gatherers that existed from around 10,000 BC in Northern Norway.
The culture is named after Mount Komsa in the present-day Alta Municipality in Finnmark county, where the remains of the cu ...
when in 1925, archaeological finds from the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...
were made in the mountains. The oldest finds have been dated to 8000–7000 BC. The mountain is close to the town of
Alta, and the mountain's name Komsa is actively used in naming in Alta.
History
The name Komsafjellet comes as a simplification of the former name Kongshavnfjell. Old maps showing today's Komsafjell showed the mountain under the name Kongshavnfjell, and the Sami name for the mountain is Gurravárri.
In 1925, archaeologist
Anders Nummedal
Anders Johnsen Nummedal (January 27, 1867 – March 6, 1944) was a Norwegian archaeologist. He is known for discovering the Fosna culture.
Nummedal was educated as a geologist, and in 1909 he was employed as a teacher at Kristiansund High School ...
made large Stone Age finds in the area. Later, more finds were found, and the area gave its name to the so-called Komsa culture. In 2000, new finds of
petroglyph
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
s were also made. On the northwest side of the mountain, there is also a 5-meter old Sami sacrificial stone, Áhkku as it is called in Sami. The Coastal Sami used to sacrifice fish and fish fat to the stone.
References
Alta, Norway
Mountains of Finnmark
{{Finnmark-mountain-stub