Editing Norway (section)

=== Prehistory ===
{{Main|Scandinavian prehistory}}
[[File:Bronze Age boats.png|thumb|left|[[Nordic Bronze Age]] [[rock carvings]] at [[Steinkjer]], [[Central Norway]]]]
The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the [[Last glacial period|last ice age]] first melted between 11,000 and 8000 BC. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9500 to 6000 BC, discovered in [[Finnmark]] ([[Komsa culture]]) in the north and [[Rogaland]] ([[Fosna-Hensbacka culture|Fosna culture]]) in the southwest. Theories about the two cultures being separate were deemed obsolete in the 1970s.<ref name="Randsborg2009">{{cite book | author = Klavs Randsborg | date = 14 September 2009 | title = The Anatomy of Denmark: Archaeology and History from the Ice Age to AD 2000 | publisher = Bloomsbury Academic | pages = | isbn = 978-0-7156-3842-2 | oclc = 1114604682}}</ref>

Between 3000 and 2500 BC, new settlers ([[Corded Ware culture]]) arrived in [[eastern Norway]]. They were [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|Indo-European]] farmers who grew grain and kept livestock, and gradually replaced the hunting-fishing population of the west coast.