Stone Age Grave of a Child(?) – initial results from Majoonsuo
In October 2018, I joined the Finnish Heritage Agency in excavating an ochre grave in Outokumpu. As partial results of the fieldwork were recently published, I wrote a short article on the excavation and my experiences to Kalmistopiiri . As the article is in Finnish, I will here briefly summarize the central points regarding this unique and fascinating site. Sunny morning at Majoonsuo excavation site. Photo: Sara Långsjö. As stated before on this blog, 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. 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. ...