Bebyggelsehistorisk tidskrift Nordic Journal of Settlement History and Built Heritage ! ! ! ! ! ! "#$%&'!! ()*$&+!,#-./0!1)'2&!3)+&! 4)$*.! 56.**)+78!9+:!'.*9$.:!8$'#;$#'.8!)+!<'.%)8$&');!=9)+*9+:! >)+*9+:! ?88#.! @@! A.9'!&B!1#C*);9$)&+! DEEF! 197.8! D@@GDHI! ?JJ,!K@LEMIN@L! ?JJ,!&+*)+.!IKKIM@NDI!! 666OC.CP77.*8.%)8$&')9O&'7! ! ! Dwellings and related struetures in prehistoric mainland Finland By Milton Nunez and Pirjo Uino Despite an early interest in the subject', organized farmers. The location of most sites mentioned here efforts to learn about prehistoric building structu¬ can be seen in the map of Figure 1. res in mainland Finland did not begin to materiali¬ ze until 20-25 years ago. Apparently excavating tbe obvious grave mounds was more rewarding than searching for indiscernible building remains, which generally were investigated only after acci¬ dental discovery. In contrast Finnish archaeologists sought the more conspicuous Metal Age founda¬ tions on the Åland Islands^ and the Stone Age dwelling depressions in the mainland after their discovery in 1950. The 1970s marked a turning point with C.F. Meinander’s project on Finnish Iron Age society, which included the investigation of building foundations and demonstrated that there was much to gain from the systematic inve- 4 stigation of prehistoric building remains. This paper attempts to summarize what we have learned from this incipient branch of archaeological re¬ search in Finland. For the sake of presentation the known prehistoric building forms have been somewhat arbitrarily grouped into two major cate¬ gories according to lifeways and chronology: Stone Age and Metal Age forms. The first would be mainly related to hunter-gatberers, the latter to Figure 1. Location of the counties with sites mentioned in the text: I. Åbo; 2. Alavus; 3. Borgå; 4. Esbo; 5. Harja- valta; 6. Hattula; 7. Honkilahti; 8. Humppila; 9. Kaland; 10. Karis; 11. Karkku; 12. Kemijärvi; 13. Kors¬ näs; 14. Kuortane; 15. Laitila; 16. Malax; 17. Nakkila; 18. Outokumpu; 19. Oravais; 20. Pemar; 21. Pieksämä- ki; 22. Posio; 23. Räisälä; 24. Raahe; 25. Rovaniemi; 26. Salo; 27. Tavastehus; 28. Vörå; 29. Yli-li. 133 Stone age forms (c.8300-1500 cal BC) Simple overnight shelters Little is known about the structures from the peri¬ od of human colonization (c.8500-7500 cal BC) right after deglaciation. It is likely that the rapidly and ever-changing environments with shoreline displacements of 3-12 m/century demanded rather mobile settlement patterns and lightly built shelters that have left few or no traces for the archaeologist. What appear to be the remains of a short-lived camp with a lean-to shelter from the 7th millenni¬ um cal BC were observed at the site of Ojalan- kangas in Alavus, Southern Ostrobotnia. Possible traces of similar structures have been recorded at other sites, and it is obvious that such flimsy over¬ night constructions were used by hunters through¬ out the prehistoric and historic periods. Figure 2. Excavation plan of the conical tent remains from Lauhala, Honkajoki, with post marks and a central charcoal lens (stoneless hearth?), according to Luho (1967). Figure 3. Excavation plan of the conical tent remains from Räisälä, Pitkäjärvi, and its reconstruction according to Pälsi (1918). The conical tent or lodge The earliest building remains known from Finland comes from the South Ostrobotnian site of Mylly- vuoma in Honkajoki. It consists of a series of post- holes suggesting a 6x8 m oval hut structure with a 2-m extension, possibly an entrance chamber to the south. (Fig.2) Indications of a stoneless hearth were found inside the structure. Both shoreline chronology and the artefacts found at this site sug¬ gest utilization some time within 7900-6800 cal BC. However, similar remains have been reported from both coastal and inland sites datable to the younger Comb ceramic period and even early Metal Age, suggesting that the conical tent/lodge was in use for several millennia. The best known of these conical structures was 9 excavated by Pälsi at Pitkäjärvi, Räisälä, on the 0 2m Carelian Isthmus (currently Russia). Based on a 134 The Semisubterranean house series of well-preserved posthole marks, he made a reconstruction (Fig. 3) that has been used to illu¬ The stabilization of the shoreline displacement strate the dwellings of Stone Age for over 75 combined with other favourable factors, as the 10 years. It was roughly circular and about 6 m onset of the climatic optimum and rich maritime across judging from the post marks and soil colo¬ environments by the 7th millennium cal BC, had a ration. Like the Honkajoki hut, there were indica¬ positive effect on lifeways and led to more stable tions of an inner hearth and a prodruding chamber/ settlement patterns with recurrent and longer sea¬ passage at its entrance. Apparently the posts had sonal stays at dwelling sites. This in turn gave rise been sunk vertically to a depth of at least 60-100 to more durable and elaborate structures at dwel¬ cm (95-135 cm from the modem ground surface). ling sites. Palsi’s reconstmction is one of several feasible Some dwelling remains from the Finnish Stone alternatives and represents a variant of the conical/ Age point to the use of semisubterranean houses, pyramidal tents or lodges common in arctic/sub¬ which also have ethnographic counterparts in arc- 14 arctic Eurasia and North America: a frame of long tic/subarctic Eurasia and North America. Al¬ poles covered with skin, bark or brash. though Finnish semisubterranean structures have 12 Meinander was critical about the interpretations been traditionally labelled as Madeneva-type dwel¬ of Finnish Stone Age huts on flimsy grounds, since lings, recent fieldwork indicates that there are in many cases the occurrence of only a few possib¬ several variants which do not quite fall within the le post marks have been interpreted as conical huts. definition originally given by Meinander in the Moreover, as he correctly pointed out, the poles 1960s: used in some simple dwelling forms need not leave ”Sammanfattningsvis kan sägas att gemensamt för alla de ovan any soil marks. On the other hand, the possible beskrivna antagna hyddbottnama är att de syns i markytan som location of such structures can be sometimes detec¬ en 20-60 cm djup svacka. Kulturlagrets botten i svackans mitt ted through detained documentation of soil colour har i flera utgrävda fall visat sig ligga över 1 m djupare än mark¬ 13 and/or find distributions. ytan på hyddans ryggsida (landsida). En central, stenlagd härd y ASUHUSPAt4ANNE.«molu*2 p « PUoAiVtl t-E likAinea ia hiwft holkUw totoitM Plirl. PtIroPttontn hichlio {•punomullol lummo tikoiMa voolao liWemoo nokiiaw puMa« Htlnon4*r I96S hilllyAyl puwfa luatwoMnnt kM Figure 4. Excavation plan of the semisubterranean house remains from Sätös, Outokumpu, with a central hearth and silhouette side walls (Karjalainen 1996). 135 tio. ti2 tu tie tie 920 Figure 5. Plans from Pesonen’s (1996) investigations of recorded, particularly in the northern half of the 16 the semisubterranean house remains at Kuorikkikangas, country during the last 10-15 years , and reports Posio: Surface contours of depression (top left); excava¬ of new sites tion plan (top right); distribution of burnt stones (bottom keep coming all the time. left) and artefacts (bottom right). Two semisubterranean Madeneva-like structures were investigated recently by Karjalainen at Sätös bar konstaterats endast en gång (Kolmhaara). I några fall har det in eastern Finland, and by Pesonen at Kuorikki¬ funnits skäl at förmoda att hyddan har haft en ram av grövre virke, men dess form har inte kunnat fastställas”. kangas in Lapland. These excavations show that the current shapes of depressions need not corres¬ Since then, dozens of new localities with over 2000 pond to their original shape or that of the dwelling semisubterranean building remains have been they encased. They have undergone modification 136 by both human and natural agents after their abandonment. Like their counterparts in the Carelian Republic, these c.6x4- m structures were quadrangular and devoid of posts marks. Along the walls of the Sätös structure, what appears to be indications of a bark and wood construction were also detec¬ ted. (Fig.4) No signs of stone- lined hearths were met at Sätös, only a few scattered fire-crack¬ ed stones and a patch of red- burnt sand near the centre of the structure. The Kuorikki- kangas house, on the other hand, was rich in fire-cracked stones and contained two red- burnt sand patches along its central axis. (Fig.5) The dates of these two sites are difficult to pinpoint. The pottery from Sätös is Typical Comb cera¬ mics (c.4100-3500 cal BC) and Pöljä asbestos ware (c.2600- 1500 cal BC), which seems to agree best with the wall mar- 19 kings. Kuorikkikangas potte¬ ry have a chronological range within 5000 cal BC and AD 300, and the refuse fauna sug- gests year-round occupation. Evidence about another dwelling variant was provided by the investigation of a large semisubterranean house site at Naarajarvi in Pieksämäki, eas¬ tern Finland. The structure appeared as an elongated SW- NE oriented 30^0 cm deep double depression from the ground surface, and excava- Figure 6. Surface contours and features (post markings and hearths) from the semisubterrane¬ an house remains at Naarajärvi, Pieksämäki, according to Matis- kainen & Jussila (1984): 137 it is not possible to determine whether all or some of the structures were in use at the same time. One thing is certain, as shown by the concentration of dwelling remains in successive terraces, the people kept moving the location of their dwellings down¬ river as the rapid Ostrobotnian land upheaval kept shifting the rivermouth away. Ongoing investigations at one of the li river sites, Kuuselankangas in Yli-Ii, have revealed at least 36 Figure 7.