Signs of Cultural Diversity in the 13th to 15th Centuries AD Coastal Region of the Bothnian Bay in Northwestern Fennoscandia

The most recent baltic sea marine hunter-gatherers? The buried individual of grave IB3 in the Suutarinniemi cemetery, Finland

“…Moreover, Cremation 2 had been deliberately tampered with so that roughly half of the burial remained intact, with the second half carefully distributed within the fill of IB3 [22]. The association of cremation burials with inhumation burials has also been observed in the coeval cemetery of Valmarinniemi in Keminmaa, some 65 km further north up the coast [22,23].…”

“…However, Cremation 1 was recovered from a secondary context–above the knee of the primary inhumation of IB3 –which is thought to have been interred at least a century later. Moreover, Cremation 2 had been deliberately tampered with so that roughly half of the burial remained intact, with the second half carefully distributed within the fill of IB3 [ 22 ]. The association of cremation burials with inhumation burials has also been observed in the coeval cemetery of Valmarinniemi in Keminmaa, some 65 km further north up the coast [ 22 , 23 ].…”

“…Typically the reservoir effect is not very strong in the northernmost Baltic Sea, and is estimated to be approximately 50 years [ 24 , 25 ]. Both the archaeological and literary evidence suggest that the correction greatly exaggerates the date, so the burial most likely dates to the 15th century, with the very early 16th century being the absolute latest date with some archaeological plausibility [ 22 ]. The skeleton of the primary burial was poorly preserved, with only parts of the skull—such as the teeth–and some long bones still consisting of solid bone.…”

“…In contrast, however, these disarticulated bones are unlikely to be the remains of older burials as is the case at Suutarinniemi, as no older, disturbed burial pits were observed. Moreover, the placement of the bones–often a skull or a piece of one–appears to have been quite particular [ 12 , 20 , 22 ]. Thus, this feature is more likely to have been part of the burial ritual itself, and is perhaps an example of the syncretistic burial custom of the time which combined simple inhumations–possibly influenced by Christian traditions–with local, non-Christian practices [ 12 ].…”

Towards a Broader Understanding of the Emergence of Iron Technology in Prehistoric Arctic Fennoscandia

“…Based on the distribution of certain types of archaeological material (such as stylistically assigned metal artefacts and different ceramic types), there is a strong tradition of considering Arctic Fennoscandia as long-term exposed to cultural elements from eastern and western cultural spheres (see e.g. Kuusela 2020 and references therein)—and the spread of iron is no exception. Current explanations look either east to hierarchical societies in the Volga-Kama area near the Ural Mountains in present-day Russia, or south to agro-pastoralist Nordic societies in southern Scandinavia.…”