Hannu Kotivuori DWELLING-SITE FINDS from the MIDDLE IRON
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Fennoscandia archaeo!ogica IX (1992) Hannu Kotivuori DWELLING-SITE FINDS FROM THE MIDDLE IRON AGE FIELDWORK AT KALASCHABRANNAN IN MAALAHTI, SOUTHERN OSTROBOTHNIA 1987-1989 Abstract Maalahti (Sw. Malax) is a coastal parish south of the town of Vaasa in Southern Ostro bothnia. A research project was conducted in this area in 1987-1989 by the Depart ment of Archaeology of the I}niversity of Umea, the Svenska Osterbottens landskapsforbund association and Osterbottens fornsforskningssiillskapet, a local ama teur archaeological society. The project addressed the problem of settlement continuity in Ostr~""thnia in the Late Iron Age. The results have been published in liirndlders bygd i Osterbotten (Iron Age Settlement in Ostrobothnia) in 1991. The project's only archaeological excavation was carried out at the Kalaschabrannan (Kalasar) dwelling site in Maalahti. One of the main results of the excavation was the discovery of so-called three-naved dwellings dating back to the Middle Iron Age. Approximately one hundred post holes were interpreted as indicating the sites of two or three partly overlapping house-floors. The terrace formation of the site also revealed crossing plough-marks of an ancient field. The artefact finds include a socketed spearhead, an even-armed brooch, a bronze ring originally belonging to a ferrule, a fragment of an oval fire-strik ing stone, ceramics, and a great deal of other material typical of Iron Age dwelling sites. This article presents a discussion of the finds, which was mostly lacking in the final re port. The present author directed the excavations at Kalaschabrannan under the auth ority of the National Board of Antiquities, and was also responsible for the plans, maps, and the excavation report. The only dating from the site is of a sample of birch bark, radiocarbon-dated to cal AD 575-659 (Stuiver & Reimer 1986). Hannu Kotivuori, Province Museum of Lapland, Arktikum Building, Pohjoisranta 14, SF-96200 Rovaniemi. 1. Research problem small number of Viking Period finds as a sign of interrupted or decreased settlement. Owing to The results of recent studies on Iron Age settle this starting point, the discussion of results risks ment history in Maalahti and near~y areas have being biased, unless a rigorous approach is main been published in liirndldersbygd i Osterbotten in tained. The project did not deal with other [ron 1991. This publication presents the work of a Age finds from Maalahti, other sites. or earlier project organized by the University of Umea, studies in any detail. Accordingly, the Ka Sweden, concerning Iron Age and medieval laschabrannan material has remained out of con settlement in the region. The only excavation of text (Fig. 1). The present article can only offer a this project was carried out at Kalaschabrannan partial solution to this problem. The site was oc (Kalasar) in Maalahti. liirndldersbygd also re cupied during the Migration and Merovingian views stray finds from Southern Ostrobothnia Periods and. as such, does not provide any es from the perspective of settlement continuity. sentially new information on settlement con One of the explicit aims of the project was to tinuity through the Viking Period. However, the present the case for continued settlement, as the excavation finds and observations are a note experts concerned did not wish to interpret the worthy addition to Iron Age settlement studies 57 in Finland. An independent overview of th.e problem, containing a grouping of the material into so-called settlement units is included in Ka· tiskoski's (1988) excellent graduate study in archaeology for the University of Helsinki. 2. Archaeological research in Maalahti The first reference to prehistoric antiquities, i.e. cairns, in Maalahti is a reply by the local vicar, Olaus Magni Arenius, to an official order from 1674 concerning the recording of old monuments and antiquities in the parishes of the Swedish realm (Klockars 1930, 13). The cairns and the prehistory of Maalahti were later described by J. R. Aspelin in Kenomus Maaiahden pi'iijiislii u. 0 00 '. ·"..... 0. ...., ''to.... ;,; . /"z,. .,J<:,-Z/ / \ > 0 ( ......... 0 0 <:") • 0 0 ti. ~ D , " Fig. 1. Iron Age antiquities and sites in Maalahti with the 15 and 2().metre a.s.l. contours. Numbers refer to Table I. Key: ., c. 16 - 22 metres a.s.l. o c. 22-27 metres a.s.l. @ pollen sample (Miettinen & Vuorela) 9 pollen sample (Segerstrom & Wallin) 58 ! • • • un < • £119" o 0 1919 C! 1'98" _ ]SO .-~~-". 7>. 0 •• 0 •• Fig. 2. Maalahti 28 KaJaschabrannan. Excavation areas A. C-F (1987.1989). cairns (1-4). and cup-marked stones (a-f). (A Description of the Parish of Maalahti) from was conducted by A.O. Heikel in 1900-1901 at 1866 and Kokoelmia muinaistutkinnon alalta the prehistoric cemetery of Kopparbacken, in (1871). Information on local antiquities was also 1901 and 1903 at the Junkaisbriinnan cemetery, gathered by the surveyor Erik Klingius in a writ and again in 1903 at the Nisseshagen cemetery. ten account from 1767, and the vicar Israel A. Hackman excavated at LOnnehagabacken in Bjork in a published article from 1772. Aspelin 1906, and in 1917 at the cemetery of Langersko was the first to survey the antiquities of the par gen. In 1936 A. Ayriipiiii conducted an exca ish in detail, and his work was continued in the vation at the Lilltelsar cemetery. After C.F. early 1880s by E.J. Chydenius (1883). Reparcel Meinander's 1951 excavation at Helenelund in ling of land around the turn of the century led to Sulva, archaeological activity ceased, and was new fieldwork by the archaeologist A.O. Heikel not revived until the 1980s. Local interest in and the surveyor A. Uinnbohm. By this time, archaeology speeded excavation projects, and over a hundred cairns had been discovered and fieldwork was carried out at cemeteries and recorded in the parish. dwelling sites at Nisseshagen, Hoisterbacken and Kalaschabrannan - hence Kalasar - was first Kopparbacken. Enthusiasm for finding a so mentioned by Aspelin (1871, 103) as 'Ka lution to the problem of depopulation in the lasabrannoo', He refers to three cairns at the Viking Period, and for demonstrating settlement site, one of which had previously revealed burnt continuity. led to fieldwork in the Kalasar area. bones. Describing his own observations, he As this site is located next to bog suitable for observes: 'When the excavation was continued, a pollen sampling, it was selected as the subject of large stone was found which was flat, but slightly further study. At present, pollen analyses have hollowed on the top surface. This find led to been carried out in the environs of four dwell speculation that it may be an offering stone' (see ing-site areas in Maalahti (Vuorela 1986; Klockars 1930, 18). In the early 1980s localama Segerstrom & Wallin 1988). Cemeteries have teur archaeologists discovered several offering been excavated at sixteen locations, and field stones in the region (Fig. 2). Early sources refer work has been conducted at the above four sites to the area in question, a bog to the south of the (see list of sites). Despite the accumulated evi dwelling site as Kalasa-iing or Pixn •. Its present dence, there have been no detailed studies of name is Vitmossen (see Smeds 1935, appended burial structures, the history of settlement, Iron maps and plans). Age economy, ecological development or land The first archaeological fieldwork in Maalahti uplift in Maalahti. 59 3. The Archaeological Record Archaeologists throughout the Nordic coun tries have long since pointed to the proximity of Archaeological research in Maalahti has focused Iron Age dwelling sites and graves (e.g. Ki on sites and antiquities of the Middle Iron Age. vikoski 1937, 7 and 1948, 81-82; Meinander Over 280 cairns have been recorded, of which 1950, 130, 180-181; Haugen 1953,47, 122, 125; some 6 per cent have been excavated (Katiskoski Ambrosiani 1964, 88, 210). [n individual cases 1988, 1,3). This number is small in comparison this locational principle follows local conditions with e.g. Viihiikyro, where roughly 30 % of all of geography and terrain. [t can thus be assumed cairns have been either completely or partly ex that most cemeteries are in the vicinity of the cavated (see Ahtela 1981). According to radio original sites to which they belonged. This per carbon dates, settlement in the Storsjo area of mits a definition of so-called settlement units ar Maalahti began in the Roman Iron Age (see ound cemeteries (see Ambrosiani 1964, 190; Hy Chapter 4.2.). Pollen analyses indicate culti enstrand 1974, 34-35). In Maalahti, eight hypo vation and pasturing from the third to the eighth thetical units of this kind can be defined at lo centuries A.D. (see Vuorela 1986; Miettinen cations between the 20 and 25·metre elevation 1986 & 1989). Most of the excavated cairns are contours, and sixteen at lower elevations (Ka dated, according to finds. to the sixth century, tiskoski 1988, 53-57). This suggests that more with use continuing until the seventh cenmry at than ten settlement units or farm households co Kalasar. Kopparbacken is the only site in the existed in Maalahti in the Migration Period. area with mainly Merovingian Period finds, Kalasar was one of these Middle Iron Age albeit partly from around A.D. 700 (Salmo 1938, farmsteads. It is located at the fringe of a for 234-235, 294). The site can be described, with ested slope over a hundred metres to the north certain reservations, as a level-ground cremation of a bog (Vitmossen). The nearby area is not cemetery, possibly including inhumation burials settled, nor is there any other land use. and the (Salmo 1938, 52; Meinander 1950. 206). The locality has remained in an almost natural state large and high cairns of the area are typical of until the present day.