Off to Work We Go!

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 wasn't always so, and thus the older collections have mainly been left to the regional museums. Thus, in the storage of the Satakunta Museum lies thousands of finds from the various eras of the Finnish history. However, not only the finds are from the time beyond, but they were also excavated and cataloged during the time without modern technology, and thus all the information that has been gathered is found only within hand-written books. Or at least that was the case when I started.

The first part of my work was to organize the collection into a more systematic order and add the missing information into the database. While the task might sounds tedious to some, it was an interesting opportunity to see the large variety of archaeological remains that Satakunta has to offer. As a mere BA student, I haven't had an access to the collections of the Finnish Heritage Agency yet, so it was also an unique possibility for me to simply learn about the objects that I had only seen in photos before.

Besides taking care of the collections and handling administrative affairs, another archaeological duty that falls on the provincial museums, is to survey potential heritage sites and this became the second part of my work.

New sites are found in a variety of ways. Often archaeologists are hired to conduct surveys for example within a single municipality, which includes many days of work in the archives and on the field. Sometimes surveys are also conducted only within a smaller area, for example when surveying areas for land use, or because of a certain research purpose, such as for mapping WWI battlements.

However, sometimes it's not the archaeologist who discovers the sites, but rather private citizens. Traditionally it's farmers who make the most archaeological discoveries, but also lumberjacks, hunters, trekkers and anyone else who moves much in the nature can spot remains of past human activities. There's also even some enthusiastic individuals, who actively seek such sites for the joy of making new discoveries and helping the archaeological research. These tips are what I've been following for the past week and of which I will be writing a few 'case studies'.

Mysterious tunnel in the woods - what lies within follows in a later post.