Made by History

After the good experiences from the week before, I wanted to gain at least one more experience on the field before the incoming winter would ruin the possibilities for many months to come. Thus, after I heard that Jan would still have one more excavation before winter, I signed up without thinking twice. This time the excavation was in Hanko – a city that would become a very familiar place for the years to come. My first ring find. Photo: Jan Fast As I have explained before , the research of Cape Tulliniemi in Hanko is a part of the doctoral dissertation of archaeologist Jan Fast, who has researched there a large German WW2 transition camp for multiple years. It was my first visit to the area, so I was given a short excursion around the central area, including slowly decaying barracks that still remained somewhat standing after the war. In Tulliniemi, we were joined by a group of archaeology and history enthusiasts, who were already very familiar with the area. With them, ...

My path in archaeology might not have been a very long one, but it has definitely been eventful and memorable. In this series of posts, I will introduce my journey on the field from the very first excavation until the start of this blog almost a year ago. Early Comb Ceramic potsherd. It was October 2016, when I noticed that archaeologist Jan Fast was organizing an excavation in Raasepori with local archaeology enthusiasts. I had barely studied a month of archaeology but I was already eager to try my hands on the field, so I immediately contacted him to ask if there happened to be an extra free seat in the car – and luckily for me, there was! A few days later our car turned onto a dirt road towards a site that’s called Långåmossarna . The site had seen multiple years of excavations in the past, mainly at an Early Comb Ceramic dwelling site by an old sandpit. However, earlier that year, Jan and his team had discovered another area with finds including potsherds attribut...

With the first archaeological survey conducted in Cape Tulliniemi earlier this month, our "Hanko 1941" project team started discussions over systemic surveys around the whole Hanko peninsula. While Hanko has rich history from earlier time periods too, it was in our interests to map and document these slowly decaying sites from the World War II, as they are often overlooked by traditional archaeology and thus are only rarely protected or preserved. After they ultimately disappear, as many already have, we can do nothing but regret the missed possibilities, so it's better to start as early as possible! Collapsed dugout near the front-lines of Hanko. As everyone, who has read about the Finnish history knows, there would be multiple possibilities for conflict archaeology within our borders. What makes Hanko unique though, is it's special role, geographically limited research area and changing inhabitants. Our interest in Hanko starts from the year 1940, when Hanko ...

Soviet dugout on Tulliniemi beach in August 1942. While the preparations for this summer's excavations are currently ongoing, there is still time for other projects and now that the snow has mostly disappeared, it's time to get the field surveys going! This year we started with the southern coast of Cape Tulliniemi - an area that has previously staid closed from us due to the regulations of the Freeport of Finland. This time the gates were kindly opened for us and we got to walk on the beaches that had not seen visitors for decades. As you might have read from my previous posts , Tulliniemi is an area that has seen a plenty of history. There has been lively maritime activities around the nearby waters for centuries and while Tulliniemi coast has sometimes provided cover for boats, it has also seen a plenty of corpses washing to the grounds from shipwrecks. There has been a plenty of stories about bones of unfortunate sailors being found on the beaches! While we kep...