Among the Oldest Bones of Lapland

While each excavation week at Savukoski has been interesting, this one surely trumped them all. It was finally time for me and my colleague to continue with Malmio 1, the second oldest Mesolithic dwelling site known to Lapland. And after days of hard work, the results we're even more exciting than we had anticipated and surely brought a smile on all of our faces!

Our picturesque excavation site in Savukoski.

As I mentioned in the past, Malmio 1 is the oldest site that we're currently excavating. It has been dated to 8,070 BC, making it the second oldest known archaeological site in Lapland and one of the oldest such sites in the whole country. However, during the first excavation week we already realized that the site had been partially destroyed by earlier land use and a lot of ground had been piled on top of the potential cultural layers. Due to the importance of the site, we were not ready to give up easily though, so me and my colleague we're given a task to find out if there was still something left underground.

While I'm always excited with such challenges, this one did not start in the most exciting way. As we started to dig down, we soon realized that the amount of sand piled on the site was even greater that we had anticipated and half of the potential area had also been scraped away at some point in the past. The rising amount of biting midges, black flies and mosquitoes surely didn't lift the mood either.

First pieces of bones from Malmio 1.

However, after hours and hours of hard work, we finally reached the old ground surface and after that everything started to clear out. By following the dark layer that we had discovered, we finally had a clear starting point for the next part of the plan - and we had already seen what was waiting for us, as small quartz flakes were already shimmering in the light.

After a relieved sigh, we documented the topmost layer and continued to dig down as usual. However, we didn't get to continue far before I noticed something light in the soil. I immediately exclaimed happily, as we had finally found the first piece of animal bone. Even if we'd find nothing else, we had found something that could be used for radiocarbon dating. I could not have been more excited! However, it was not the last of it's kind and soon we were almost swimming in pieces of bones, as the site suddenly started to provide. After days of digging nothing, we finally had reached more than we came for!

While the work with Malmio 1 still continues, I can already say that I'm happy with the results so far, as this bit of information is already a great addition to what we know of Mesolithic Lapland.

It's also great to suddenly multiply the amount of bone finds from the area, as the limited findings from the past have already been included in a certain academic paper discussing a specific bâton percé found in Gołębiewo, Poland. Based on isotopic analysis, it was determined that the origin of the antler was from an area north and east to the Kuopio macroregion in Finland up to the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Thus, the artefact is an interesting piece of evidence of interregional contact in the European Mesolithic.

While the origin of the artefact might not be Malmio 1, the case itself is a good reminder of the importance of every single find from an archaeological excavation. With every find comes new information, which doesn't only help us to learn about the local history, but can also be the missing piece into the big picture that's called world history. And this is what makes every new piece of bone ever more exciting!

Distribution of finds after the first three layers.