Fleeting Remains of the Comb Ceramic Ruskiasuo

While it's winter now and the ground is frozen for a few more months, it's again a good time to look back on past excavations. While I've written about many of my devours past summer, there's a particular one that I still want to share with you. It also serves as a good example of the endangered past that slowly erodes and escapes our grasp.

Excavation in progress.
In June, I took a little detour from my work in Satakunta to join archaeologists Jan Fast and Janne Soisalo in Kouvola. There they had planned the first public archaeology project in the history of the city and had 15 participants ready to sink their hands into the soft sand of Ruskiasuo dwelling site. While the site had never been excavated, it was already known to archaeologists since its discovery in 1980s. Based on the finds made at that time by a local archaeology enthusiast, the site was dated to the time of Early Comb Ceramic culture ca. 5200–4450 BC.

Early Comb Ceramic pottery.
As the site had been discovered by the edge of an old gravel pit, it was already known that a portion of the site was possibly destroyed in the past. It was now time to find out how much still remained and to figure out the best way to approach the site in future excavations. As the site was also in danger due to the eroding banks of the gravel pit, we started with the most vulnerable parts with a goal to secure the site from further erosion.

Over the course of a few days, we opened two test trenches at two different gravel pits next to each other and it was my task to lead the excavation of the trench B. However, it soon became evident that even while the collapsed bank of the trench B showed a decent amount of Comb Ceramic pottery, the excavation area itself was short on finds. After finishing with the trench, we determined that this part of the dwelling site had been destroyed due to gravel taking and only a fraction remained.

Luckily for us, the trench A was more fruitful and reveled a reasonably vast area of finds consisting of ceramics, quartz objects and burnt animal bones. As a pleasant surprise, the pottery finds were not solely Comb Ceramic pottery, but there was also a modest amount of early Corded Ware finds, making the site even more interesting for further research.

Such further research will already take place next June, when Jan and Janne will return to the site yet again. If you want to be involved in further discovering what the site has to offer, you can sign up as a participant in early 2020. While my plans for the coming year are still in progress, I hope I'll get a chance to continue working with this interesting site!

Projection of the sea level around the site ca 4800 BC.

Location: Kouvola, Suomi

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Around Satakunta: The Big Three of Eura

Image
In Finland, there are certain sites that every archaeology student hears about during the very first lectures at the university – and surprisingly enough, many of them lie quite close to each other within the borders of Eura. While Eura has put a lot of effort into showcasing their ancient history and there's a plenty of information online to plan a day-trip, I still wanted to share a few prominent sites to get started with. In case you have time only for a few sites, you might want to go with these "big three"! The Kings's Grave – largest burial cairn in Finland. Kuninkaanhauta Kuninkaanhauta, literally the King’s Grave, is the largest burial cairn in Finland. It’s located right along the road, so everyone passing by is sure to notice this pile of stones rising up to 4,5 meters in height. It has never been researched from the inside but based on the location it has been dated to the early half of the Bronze Age 3500 years ago. If you have never seen cair
Read more

Around Satakunta: Many Periods of Karvia

Image
While Satakunta has many famous archaeological sites to offer, sometimes it's fun to diverge from the paved path and seek something entirely different. For me, one of the most memorable trips from this summer was a long drive through the northern parts of the province, where I was met by sites from various periods from the early Mesolithic to the Swedish era and even up to the World War II. As the distances in the north are as great as the gaps between the periods of various sites, I will only concentrate on Karvia, which alone has much to offer to any curious soul. Kyrönkankaan tie - a road that was first mentioned in 1556 and has seen many uses ever since. Pantti The impossible task of taking photos of dwelling sites. A great place to start your Karvia tour is from the very beginning of human habitation in the area. Pantti is a Stone Age dwelling site, which has not yet seen much research and the finds from the first survey include only quartz flakes and bone. Ho
Read more

Tracing the First Humans of Lapland

Image
Last week I once again joined the payroll of the Finnish Heritage Agency, but this time the work was something entirely different. Instead of traveling around the country like last year, I'm stationed in the municipality of Savukoski for two months. By opening twelve excavation trenches around the far eastern parts of the Finnish Lapland, we're hoping to get a glimpse into the life of the first humans who set their foot in Lapland more than 10,000 years ago. Preparing an excavation area with a total station. Savukoski is one of the cradles of early human habitation in Finland and one would think that any archaeologist would be eager to be the one to research it. However, due to the relatively isolated location of the potential sites and lack of funding for archaeological research, the sites have seen very little research and all finds from the area are from field surveys. Thus, our excavation has a plenty of potential to shed light into the distant past of the whol
Read more