Jari Okkonen

Sacred and Profane Livelihood: Animal Bones from Sieidi Sites in Northern Finland

In this paper, animal offerings at Sámi sacrificial sites, sieidi (SaaN), will be discussed from an archaeological and a zooarchaeological point of view. Offerings are seen as a part of daily subsistence activities where the border between sacred and profane was fuzzy and transient. We take the position that animal offerings cannot be interpreted as ritual actions clearly separated from everyday life, but, rather, we have to take into account that the relationship between offerings and livelihood was seen as a dynamic one in a holistic worldview. We discuss archaeological finds from three sieidi sites as examples and claim that the offerings taken to sieidi sites tell us about daily subsistence strategies but at the same time also about the relationship between people and animals in the worldview of the Sámi.

Social Complexity in the Mid-Holocene Northeastern Bothnian Gulf

There was a period of reduced mobility, increased population density, and social complexity among hunter–gatherers in northern Bothnian prehistory between about 4050 and 2050 cal bc. We argue that this was made possible by a combination of physical and social factors that include the shortening of the coastline due to isostatic land uplift, the reduction of distances between major river mouths along the Bothnian coast, and the local variability in rate of shoreline displacement at individual river mouths.

Luminescence dating of a coastal Stone Age dwelling place in Northern Finland

Abstract TL and OSL methods were used in order to date an archaeologically interesting site, the Giants’ church in Kastelli, Northern Finland. The TL method was used for burnt stones collected from heaps of fire-cracked stones. At least some of the collected stones were heated properly during the times the heaps were used and that made TL dating possible. OSL measurements were made on a coastal sand layer continuing partly under the heaps. This sand layer is expected to have been formed during the same time period as the heaps were used. The results are in good agreement with radiocarbon dates on charcoal from the site and with archaeological and shoreline displacement chronology. All the results for the Kastelli site point to an age in the middle of the third millennium BC.

Paleoshorelines and prehistory on the eastern Bothnian Bay coast (Finland): local environmental variability as a trigger for social change

Abstract Research on the relation between the natural environment and human society in northwest coastal Finland between 6500 and 4000 cal BP shows a strong relation between regional environmental variability and changes in human society. It is not only the environmental change but also the regional variability in shoreline displacement that triggered changes in hunter-gatherer society in Finland. Postglacial land uplift caused a reduction of the distance between the major river estuaries flowing into the Bothnian Bay due to its particular shape. This led to increased population densities, even without population growth. In combination with increasing variability in the westward displacement of the different river mouths, i.e. increased variability of river mouth stability, this resulted in increased sedentism and aggregation among the hunter-gatherers living on the Bothnian Bay coast of northern Finland around 5500–5000 cal BP.