Made by History

After a long field season, the snow eventually falls and it's time to return from the field. This doesn't mean that all the work would be over though - on the contrary, it only marks the beginning of the more time consuming part of the research. There are multiple steps of work that follows excavations and I don't even try to cover all of it. Instead, in the following posts, I'll give a few examples on the tasks I've been working with recently. To start with the most obvious, one of the most exciting steps after returning from the field is to dive into all the finds gathered over the days or weeks of hard labor. As there rarely is enough time to see every find on the field, it's always interesting to see the big picture when returning to the finds afterward. As each find is typically packed separately, there often is a mountain of paper bags to dig through. After they are organized based on the location and layer of the finds within the excavation t...

While the weather gets colder and ground is covered by frost, most archaeological work is moved into the laboratories and offices. However, we still had time for one more gig - this time in Outokumpu, where we staid three whole weeks excavating a site that would be one of the most memorable ones over my short career. Our task was to finish the excavation of an ochre grave that had already been opened up earlier in summer. Ochre is a natural clay earth pigment, that has had various uses since the Stone Age. Besides being used as a pigment for rock paintings and small objects, it was also once used on graves. Around 60 such graves, dated to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, have been discovered in Finland. 1 Besides ochre, the graves typically contain stone tools and flakes, and especially the Comb Ware graves have contained a plenty of amber, flint and slate objects. However, human teeth or bone has been found only from nine sites. 2 Our site was discovered already in th...

Last year the Finnish Cultural Foundation announced a new Mullankaivajat ("soil diggers") grant, which was applicable for archaeological projects organized in cooperation with schools around Finland. It aimed to bring archaeological research closer to the life of the local children and make them more aware of the history that surrounds them. The grant has already led to multiple excavations around the country and it's no surprise that our trial excavation team got involved with a project as well - this time in Kontiolahti. In Kontiolahti, we joined a project organized in cooperation with the National Museum of Finland and the Association of Cultural Heritage Education in Finland. Before our arrival the project team had already visited the local school and told the children of various age about the site they were about to research - the house of the local smith Tobias Takkunen from the 19th century. Children came to the site in small groups and took part in four...

As mentioned before, a typical job for the trial excavation team is to conduct small-scale trial excavations in areas that have potential archaeological heritage but are falling under land use. Based on trial excavations, building projects can be halted until further research is conducted or, if possible, a potential area for the construction is found from an area that wouldn't disturb the archaeological heritage. This time our work sent us to further north and after hours of driving, we ended up in the city of Tornio right by the Swedish border. In Tornio, our mission was to dig test pits and trenches around an empty lot, that would soon fall under further land use. As it’s typical to change the soil for the entire lot when building residential buildings within cities, the whole lot had to be checked for archaeological heritage. This time we couldn’t just find the most suitable place for the building, but rather had to find out if further excavations were needed and if so, to...

Three weeks in Keitele are finally over and the excavations were conducted successfully to the end. While our days in the trenches remained scorching hot due to the unusually long heatwave, the nearby lake provided some comfort and the multitude of finds kept our spirits high! Even though the finds are still waiting to be examined and the report to be written, I can share some initial thoughts of the excavations at this site that proved to be a Mesolithic paradise to any Stone Age archaeologist. Fire place from the first week getting slowly uncovered. As we had opened three trenches on the first week, we continued the work on all three areas, while also opening some smaller test trenches to see the extent of the archaeological potential. Photo: Sara Perälä The site continued to be rich in finds, although the variety of them was as narrow as expected from a Mesolithic site in Finland. Basically, almost all finds could be divided into two categories - animal bones and quar...

For an archaeology students, job opportunities are often scarce and sprinkled around the country, with a contract typically lasting only for the duration of a single excavation. It's also typical that the job ads appear only a few weeks before the said excavation, making it stressful to wait for potential work offers. That's why I've been glad and humbled to have a fixed schedule from early on, and while I have barely had a few days of holiday during summer, I happily moved straight from Hanko to the  beginning of the next journey of my summer – this time within the Finnish Heritage Agency. As it's said on their website, the Finnish Heritage Agency preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. They have various departments from museum services to preserving cultural environment and handling research permits for archaeological excavations. My position for the next three months will be within the trial excavati...

Three weeks in Hanko went past faster than I expected, but luckily the finds continued numerous during the last week and the new crew made exciting discoveries each day. For this last week, we concentrated our efforts on e xcavating a sizable trash dump within the Ukrainian prison camp, uncovering layers rich in a variety of finds - porcelain, coins, buttons, combs and a lot more. Meanwhile I led a small task force to finish the excavations at the German Red Cross (DRK) trench, which required still a fair bit of work even after three weeks of excavations. "The Graveyard of Bottles" So far all the trenches we've opened have been a bit different in the type of finds, but with these two trenches the difference was even more clear. While the finds of the Ukrainian prison camp included a lot of personal items, such as a mess tin with its owner's initials carved on it and even a SA Sports Badge, the finds from the DRK trench were very different in style. During the...

Trenches had lots of fragments of books, tobacco packages and official documents. Yet another week in Hanko is coming to an end and another group of helpful volunteers has left the site for their homes. This time we opened two completely new trenches while the work at the German Red Cross site continued. If you're interested in seeing photos of the many finds made during the week, check out Jan Fast's blog starting from this post . My duties were similar than on the week before and the trenches kept me busy, as the find were numerous and we had much more participants than on the first week. The finds were also quite different in style and it was a pleasant surprise to uncover multiple pieces of German writings as well as fairly well preserved textiles. At the same time, the tin cans that we had gathered hundreds during the first week were now almost non-existent. Metal detector showed it prowess again during the week, as it gave as a clearer picture on the concentr...

After six weeks in Pori, it was time to move on and relocate myself to a bit more familiar area - Hanko, the southernmost city of Finland. There I was to spend the following three weeks excavating the remains of a German transition camp from the WWII. It was a site that had seen a considerable amount of research for the past four field seasons, and now it was time to wrap up the excavations for the time being. The expectations and hopes were high and the first week truly didn't disappoint! The German camp in Hanko served as a transition camp during the Continuation War, receiving and sending off German soldiers on their way to Lapland and back. It was a massive complex with thousands of soldiers flowing through every day, and while most of the buildings have since been demolished, a few barracks still remain. However, even if the area has since been mostly overtaken by nature, lots of remains of the activities are still hidden underneath the topsoil and the stories that these ...

My work in Satakunta has come to an end, but I'm taking one more quick look into field surveys and what is there to learn from the case studies that I've shared here previously. While my writings were meant to simply give a brief look into one side of archaeological research, I also purposely included sites that highlight different aspects of field surveys. However, there is still much more when it comes to the topic and if you're interested in making discoveries yourself, then you might want to get your hands into the mud! Here's a few of my thoughts that might help you to get started. The best way to learn about different kinds of archaeological heritage, is by visiting the sites yourself and it's often good to start from the sites that have already been discovered. So, browse through the database and pick different types of sites that are close to your home. Don't only list them, but read the descriptions in advance and pay attention to the observations...

As the last type of archaeological heritage, I decided to jump a bit further towards the present and concentrate on something a bit closer to our time - archaeology of modern conflicts. As the sites older than one hundred years are protected by the Antiquities Act, the conflicts preceding and following the Finnish independence already fall under it. While there has been a lot of interest towards the Civil War recently, I'm now concentrating on remains just a bit older than it. Karhumaantie trench in Ruosniemi. During the World War I, Finland was still under the Russian Empire. At the time, Russia was afraid of a German landing in Finland, so a formidable operation was launched to prepare fortifications around the major cities and roads within the Grand Duchy of Finland. In Satakunta, these were concentrated mainly around the cities of Rauma and Pori. While many trenches were already known around the region at the start of my work, I took it as my task to pinpoi...

While tar kilns and charcoal piles might not appear that often in the archaeological database of the Finnish Heritage Agency, there is a type of heritage that seems almost overly common within Satakunta - that is cairns. It was also cairns that I first got to visit when arriving to the region and they have been a common part of my weekly visitation schedule ever since. Cairns are fairly easy to spot for anyone moving in the nature, but a lot harder to determine without prior knowledge. The first cairn I visited in Satakunta - Rihtmäenperkko II in Rauma. Cairns are typically described as human-made piles of stones, that have been built for a variety of purposes and this variety makes them a bit harder to further determine. While the archaeologists mostly focus on cairns that were used for burials, humans have also piled rocks for example as landmarks, oven-bases and ritual sites, but also just to simply remove rocks from a field. Besides, some rock-formations are naturally bor...

Earlier this year I visited some potential research sites in Porvoo with archaeologists Jan Fast and Janne Soisalo. With the assistance of a helpful landowner, we managed to pinpoint an ideal spot for excavations on the edge of a gravel pit - and now it was time to see what the site had to offer! Even though my work in Pori was still ongoing, I decided to take a day off in order to join the second weekend of excavations. The first excavation day ongoing. Photo: Jan Fast The excavations were conducted as community archaeology excavations with around 15 daily participants excavating the area. While many of the participants were first-timers with archaeology, the work went smoothly and people's excitement showed through the warm atmosphere that filled the weekend with friendly chatter and laughter. Our goal was to open a new area next to the excavated trench from the previous weekend, in order to continue the systematic excavation of the site and pinpoint the highest concen...

After tar kilns, it seems suitable to continue to other rarely researched archaeological remains - charcoal piles. Besides the limited research history, the two also share some similarities through the construction style, basic idea and historical context. However, the remains that are left for today are very different in appearance and charcoal piles are not as easy to spot as the doughnut-like tar kilns. However, thanks to the help of a certain landowner, I managed to visit one in Ulvila. Charcoal piles were basically constructions to produce charcoal during the historical time - in some extent even during the Iron Age. The idea of the construction is very similar to tar kilns and some charcoal piles were actually built into a dug hole. However, constructions above ground were more dominant in style. In those, wood is piled against each other, covered by turf and a fire is lit inside. The use of charcoal piles is usually connected to metallurgy, as furnaces required great am...

Out of all the archaeological remains around Satakunta region, there’s a certain type of archaeological heritage that's probably the easiest to find, but still often overlooked and rarely researched – that of course is tar kiln. While I rarely hear much enthusiasm among archaeologists towards these remains of historical tar production, their appearance and presence has always strangely fascinated me. So, it’s no surprise, that I’ve found time to visit a few during my weeks in Satakunta! Tar kilns (‘tervahauta’) are basically dry distillation ovens, that were used to produce tar from wood. While there are a few distinct styles of tar kilns, they most commonly appear as primitive holes in the ground with sloped walls towards an outlet hole, which allowed the tar to pour straight into a container. These kilns used to be filled with wood, which was in turn covered with a tight layer of dirt and moss. Burning the kiln with a low level of oxygen caused tar and pitch to drip away fr...

For these past five weeks I've been working for the Satakunta Museum, which is one of the central regional museums in Finland. Besides running the exhibitions, including the recently recreated permanent exhibition, the museum has an important role in surveying and preserving the archaeological heritage in the region of Satakunta. The museum has a permanent position for an archaeologist and they employ annually one "summer archaeologist" to help out with the running errands. This year that person happened to me. While most of the archaeological work in provincial museums is centered around administrative affairs, such as land use permits, my tasks have been more varying and mostly very practical. And they all quite fittingly started from the basement! Iron Age weaponry from the depths of the  archaeological collection. In Finland, all archaeological finds are delivered straight to the storage of the Finnish Heritage Agency after excavations. However, the case ...

Excavation in Kimitoön. Photo: Jan Fast This blog is a brainchild of a soon-to-be third-year archaeology student from the University of Helsinki. While founding a blog is strongly encouraged by our faculty, the thought of it had crossed my mind several times even before the possibility of study credits. However, while I’ve always enjoyed writing, I’ve never had enough patience to write publicly in an organized manner. On the other hand, I’ve never had a solid reason to write publicly either. This time there might even be a point to it – let’s see if you agree! During these two years, my curious soul has led me into a fair share of activities related to archaeology. I’ve always been the kind of person who gets absorbed by whatever he is doing, so it’s no surprise that the world of archaeology felt like Narnia from the very beginning. As soon as I could, I joined excavations on the field, sat through countless seminars, traveled abroad for new skills and am currently spendi...