Marine Ventures is a compilation of papers presented at an international symposium held in Trondheim, Norway, in 2013. It is an outgrowth of comparative research in Scandinavia and southern South America led by Bjerck and Zangrando. The subsequent symposium was expanded to include contributions from additional scholars, and the volume is divided into three sections: (1) “Beginnings,” (2) “Life Styles,” and (3) “Seafaring.”

In Section 1, Álvares-Fernández documents the consumption of marine resources beginning about 34,000 years ago at sites at northern Spain's La Garma Hill. Bergsvik and colleagues compare two Norwegian coastal rockshelters and their relevance to the regional development of Mesolithic sedentism. Bjerck and colleagues explore parallels and differences in seal hunting between Patagonia and Scandinavia and the development of regional foraging systems. Breivik and colleagues compare terrestrial and marine forager models and latitudinal analyses and demonstrate that the use of boats fosters different cultural perspectives and models of mobility and subsistence. Fedje and McLaren apply local tectonic and sea level data to identify areas of late Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological site potential in coastal British Columbia, Canada. Woodman compares early Holocene maritime population expansion and adaptation in Ireland and Norway and suggests that ecological similarities rather than distance are more important factors in human dispersals. Zangrando and colleagues explore criteria defining cultural complexity and marine foraging between Norway and Tierra del Fuego and conclude that the evidence does not support traditional evolutionary models of increasing complexity over time.

In Section 2, Reyes and colleagues employ tectonic records to identify elevated and submerged shorelines and archaeological sites in coastal Patagonia. Román and colleagues outline a cultural historical sequence for the southernmost region of Patagonia and relate it to cultural interaction and exchange. Fretheim and colleagues address maritime settlement and mobility by comparing areas in Norway and Tierra del Fuego. They posit that indigenous ecological knowledge accumulates during times of environmental stability and that cultural similarities may be largely superficial in relation to underlying regional environmental conditions. Harmsen and Karunaratne provide an overview of archaeology in Sri Lanka and advocate for better understanding of tsunamis and other coastal hazards. Rogers provides an overlooked perspective on high-latitude waters where ice greatly influences subsistence, mobility, and the preservation and destruction of archaeological sites.

An important contribution by Skar and colleagues describes the underwater discovery at Hummervikholmen, Norway, where human remains originally deposited on land survived marine transgression, and it demonstrates the use of watercraft and seal hunting at the site during the early-middle Mesolithic. Soares synthesizes mid- to late Holocene sites near Portugal's Sado River estuary and theorizes that the development of an “agro-maritime economy” originated from fishing, harvesting shellfish, and salt exploitation. Solheim and Persson infer from faunal remains and features that residents of Norway's Oslofjord region consumed terrestrial and maritime foods and that rudimentary sedentism began possibly as early as 7500 cal BP. Sørheim concludes the section by describing the rise of commercial fishing in the twelfth century AD, resulting in shifts in types and patterns of coastal Norwegian settlements.

In Section 3, Anichtchenko outlines the origins of sails and their use by indigenous people of Arctic North America. Erlandson illustrates how paleogeographic reconstruction in California's Channel Islands facilitates paleoecological interpretations. Gjerde analyzes Fennoscandian rock art to interpret watercraft use and maritime subsistence over the past 7,000 years. Husøy and Swensen report mixed analytical results comparing archaeological and ethnographic data of the Yamana of Tierra del Fuego with Bridges's 1933 Yanana-English Dictionary. Nielsen and colleagues document increased use of local Norwegian quartz during Mesolithic and middle Neolithic times, which they attribute to maritime resource intensification. Rankin and Crompton document maritime technology and high marine productivity in the northwest Atlantic, leading to early interaction between Basque and French fishers and Inuit living along the Labrador coast. The final chapter by Sperling considers the history of research on and the significance of Bronze Age (1800–500 BC) maritime distribution routes in the Baltic region.

Marine Ventures is broad in scope and a significant contribution to marine archaeology. It underscores the importance of maritime research and the fact that American archaeology has not kept pace with developments elsewhere. This disparity is particularly evident in themes such as human dispersals, mobility, sedentism, subsistence, and investigations of sites inundated by post-Pleistocene sea level rise. Marine Ventures is important to readers of American Antiquity because oceans touch all continents. This volume transcends terrestrial biases and regional boundaries by illustrating the many ways oceans have configured and influenced cultural developments.