Swedenization of the North – the early medieval Swedish northern expansion and the emergence of the Birkarls.

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

“….all the coastal sealing sites along the Bothnian coast had been abandoned" [47]. Our results suggest that there was a similar process on the (current) Finnish side of the Bothnian Bay (Nurmi et al 2020) but that it was slower, with seals continuing to be exploited after they no longer were on the Swedish side.…”

“…However, this would have been small-scale farming, not consistent subsistence agricultural practice. This did not exist in the north this early, as there is no archaeological evidence for it on the Finnish side of the Bay [ 11 ]. The Iin Hamina site–which dates to between the late 15th and 17th centuries AD, and is close to Suutariniemi–has produced cow bones in the soil of its burial, which indicate some sort of animal husbandry [ 48 ].…”

“…At the time this theory was presented, archaeological evidence could neither verify nor disprove it. However, since the 2010s this has gradually changed, and an expanding body of evidence has enabled a more critical assessment of this type of “colonial theory” [ 10 , 11 ]. Contrary to earlier views, the available archaeological evidence points towards a more complex picture.…”