9.3. Cairns: a Coastal Archaeology View

There are presumably approximately 10000 cairns on the coast of Finland (Salo et al. 1992: 6)[1]. Quite a few of those date from the Bronze Age, but in a large part of the coast the cairn remained the most common type of burial far in the Iron Age. According to C.F. Meinander, there are cairns in all coastal elevation zones in southern Ostrobothnia, which provides firm evidence of the continuity of settlement from the Bronze Age to the Pre-Roman Iron Age. In the Nordic countries cairns have been in the Early Iron Age more predominant in Ostrobothnia than anywhere else, which, according to Meinander, indicates an independent tradition in the region (Meinander 1977: 23).

The distributions of the grave site elevations in Middle Ostrobothnia, collected by Ari Siiriäinen, demonstrate that the Bronze-Age burial cairns are located higher up in the terrain than those from the Iron Age, and that there are graves which have been constructed after the Iron Age (Siiriäinen 1978).

Also on the coast of Satakunta the tradition of cairns continued until the Iron Age, at least until the Late Roman Iron Age but after that the finds are sparse (Salo 1970). So far, it has been possible to date only four graves in the Viking Age (Räty 1992).

In the coastal regions of South-West Finland, more than 1000 cairns have been reported, and less than 100 of these have been excavated (Salo et al. 1992). In the valley of the River Aura which has been scrutinized in the most minute detail, the cairns indicate a continuity of settlement from the Bronze Age until the Pre-Roman Iron Age, and there are some registered cairns from the Migration Period. Reliable datings are, however, rather sparse. Juha-Matti Vuorinen has observed that there is a size gradient for the cairns from the inland towards the coast so that the inland graves in Laitila, for instance, are, on an average, larger than those in Kalanti which is closer to the coast; correspondingly the graves in Mynämäki are, on an average, larger than those in Mietoinen (Vuorinen 2000 c: 181). This is a distinct suggestion of the fact that the construction of graves has kept along the receding shoreline (due to land uplift), and that the inland graves are thus, on an average, older than those on the coast. The direction of the age gradient is thus logical, and in accordance with that in the archipelago.

During the Iron Age new grave and cemetery types were established in South-West Finland, such as the cemetery types of Kärsämäki and Untamala, tarand graves, cremation cemeteries under level ground, and inhumation cemeteries (eg. Salo 1995). During the Iron Age the great frequency of graves and cemeteries becomes a prominent feature of the agrarian regions on the mainland coast of South-West Finland in reference to the other provinces of the Finnish mainland; other characteristic features include the diversity of grave types, and the long-term usage of the cemeteries (Seger 1982 b; Seger 1984). According to Kaisa Lehtonen, there is a tendency in the river Aurajoki valley towards a more uniform burial practice in the Late Iron Age, but otherwise her results support the general notion concerning the frequency and period of use of the cemeteries (Lehtonen 2000).

The many cairns on the mainland of Åland date back to the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. There is, however, no clear-cut line between a burial cairn and a burial mound from the Late Iron Age on Åland (e.g. Kivikoski 1963); at frequent sites the two grave types seem, at least partly, to have coexisted in the Late Iron Age. It is not very probable, either, that the difference between the grave types should imply a discontinuity of settlement (Edgren 1983; Edgren 1984).

In the archipelago of Åland cairns are relatively sparse (Karlsson 1990). Thorough studies by Kenneth Gustavsson have demonstrated that the settlement at Otterböte in Kökar dates back to the Bronze Age (approximately 1000 BC), and served as a winter dwelling site where seal hunters from the southern coast of the Baltic, today’s Poland, spent some months waiting for the beginning of the hunting season. It is worth noting that so far only one cairn has been discovered in Kökar although the investigations in the region have been fairly thorough. The grave dates back to the Late Iron Age (Gustavsson 1997).

On the western coast of Finland the tradition of the Bronze-Age grave type seems to have continued with unabated strength even in the Iron Age. In South-West Finland the tradition receded in an early phase, the ancient grave type was substituted by various diversified and partly successive grave and cemetery types. In the archipelago of Åboland the tradition of cairns continued with little change in the Iron Age. On the mainland of Åland the burial ritual changed from the old cairn structure into a mound, often with various internal structures. Further north on the coasts of Satakunta and Southern Ostrobothnia the cairns became rare in the Iron Age, and apparently they were not substituted by other grave types to the same extent as in South-West Finland. Thus the tradition of cairns changed or was substituted principally in South-West Finland and on the mainland of Åland; the expansion of agrarian economy in the Iron-Age is another common feature with the two regions. This again raises the question whether the continuity of the cairn tradition from the Bronze age to the Iron Age was associated with the subsistence strategies of the coastal population. Is it possible to associate cairns with maritime settlement?

In Finland, shore displacement was the most rapid on the western coast. The grave sites have risen high above the present-day sea level but along the coast the occurrence of cairns follows mainly, however, the elevation zones of the shores in the Early Metal Age (Okkonen 1998; Siiriäinen 1978; Meinander 1977; Meinander 1954 a; Salo 1981 b; Salo et al. 1992). In Ostrobothnia and Satakunta where the peneplane is flat, and where there are few islands off the coast, the occurrence of the cairns follows the coast like a string of pearls. In the regions with an archipelago, as in Åboland, the occurrence of cairns dissolves into a zone covering the width of the archipelago. The inland location of several cairns is only seeming: the cairns in Perniö in South-West Finland seem to have been built in the inland but in the Bronze Age the sea reached the valleys of the River Perniönjoki and the River Asteljoki as deep fjords, and most of the cairns were located on their banks (Kallberg 1991: map 2).

With the land uplift new islands emerged out of the sea outer and outer in the archipelago. The islands grew in size, and new graves were built on them. This is how the stochastic age gradient of the graves developed into what it is in the present-day landscape from the mainland coast to the outer archipelago: the Bronze-Age graves (Group P) are located in the inner and the middle zone, while the Iron-Age graves (Group R) are in the middle and the outer zone, occasionally close to the skerry zone. Figure 76 displays on a map all the ”classical” Iron-Age graves and cemeteries in South-West Finland[2]: mounds and mound cemeteries (89), intermediate forms between cairns and mounds (273), inhumations and inhumation cemeteries (41), cremation cemeteries (142), stone constructions above the ground other than cairns (tarand graves, graves indicated with an upright stone (29), miscellaneous, indeterminable graves (49), totalling 623 cemeteries and individual graves. A comparison with the distribution of cairns in South-West Finland (figure 77) seems to reveal a two-way process in burial rituals: (1) in the Bronze Age the graves were constructed mostly on the mainland coast or the large mainland-like islands close to the coast, and (2) in the Iron Age the cairns were built in different parts of the archipelago, but most typically in the middle and the outer zones, and at the same time the classical grave and cemetery types of the Iron Age began to be established on the mainland and in mainland-like regions at some distance from the shore.

Naturally, the procedure of shaping the spreading process involves also a source of error: the cognizance of the chronology of the cairns on the mainland coast, and, as a consequence, also of their location in reference to the ancient phases of the sea shore is defective. In this phase of research, the interpretation which seems the most recommendable to me, is the following: the burial cairns represent the Bronze-Age population who based their subsistence mainly on the versatile natural resources of the archipelago (including arable land), and the Iron-Age population who pursued the Bronze-Age strategies of subsistence. The classical grave and cemetery types of the Iron Age represent a population whose way of living was associated with the mainland rather than the archipelago, and whose subsistence was based on the options provided by specialized cattle-raising and agriculture.

The Bronze-Age graves were, in my opinion, built by a population who pursued the slash-and-burn type of agriculture adopted during the culture of Kiukais, and for whom fishing, seal hunting, fowling, and other maritime sources of livelihood were of great significance. The islanders of the Bronze Age exploited the opportunities provided by their topographically versatile and small-featured environment in their subsistence strategies. In their religious thinking the earth possessed significances which made them construct the graves at maritime sites from where one could see extensive areas of land. This might have something to do with a symbolically presented and desired yield of land and cattle rather than with an actual success within a source of livelihood which had barely been initiated in the circumstances of the northern Baltic and involved great risks of failure of crops. The stone and wooden tools of the Bronze Age made small-scale agriculture, presumably slash-and-burn-cultivation, feasible, but it was impossible to resort to agriculture alone. The sea was of great importance, firstly, since it offered several sources of livelihood giving thus security, and secondly, because of the maritime climate which provided the best possible prerequisites for agriculture. The Bronze-Age islanders of the south-western archipelago of Finland observed thus, in their own way, the same strategy of low productivity and minimized risks as the Bronze-Age populations in many other parts of northeastern Europe (Zvelebil 1985).

The Iron-Age islanders of the archipelago pursued the burial ritual initiated in the Bronze Age; the graves were, however, not as large as before – or there were fewer reinterments than previously –, and the grave sites were selected in the landscape so that the viewsheds from them were turned towards the sea. During the Iron Age the constructors of the graves found their way also to the outer isles and skerries, which naturally evokes an image of the great significance of fishing, seal hunting, and fowling. The pollen analyses refer, however, to the stabilization of agriculture towards the end of the Iron Age, at least in the inner and the middle archipelago zones. The multifaceted economy of the Bronze Age seems thus to have continued in the archipelago which offered good natural conditions to that activity. The continuity of the burial ritual was associated with the continuity of subsistence strategies. There was no need to change either of those. The Metal-Age subsistence strategy in the archipelago may thus have resembled, to some extent, the annual rotational cycle of the islanders which is well-known from ethnographies; this cycle comprised a seasonal exploitation of natural resources, the rotational interlock of agriculture, cattle raising, fishing of different fish species, seal hunting, fowling, egg collecting, and the use of other natural products. If one of these resources failed, the loss could be compensated for by strengthening the use of other resources (see Storå 1982; Storå 1985).

Further light on the development of the settlement and the economy on the mainland coast in South-West Finland can be thrown if one makes an effort to see these aspects from a coastal archaeology view. The response of the Bronze-Age economy to the risks of agriculture at the extreme climatic limits of the possibilities of cultivation was the multifaceted economy and the avoidance of risks; new and better prerequisites of more extensive cultivation and of getting the best possible profit from it, were opened when the iron tools were introduced in tilling the soil. The use of iron scythes facilitated the gathering of forage on the meadows. The development of mainland settlement and the expansion of agriculture (e.g. Meinander 1980) was a socio-economic change which apparently led also to changes and diversity in burials.

According to Marek Zvelebil the real Neolithic form of economy did not develop in northeastern Europe until the Iron Age on account of the risks involved in agriculture. The agrarian economy was compelled to aim, if possible, at safeguarding productivity in case of possible collapses, and this adaptation included orientations towards cattle raising, slash-and-burn-cultivation, and versatile mixed economy. The trend was, however, distinct: from the earlier unspecialized, local cultivation which aimed at providing indispensable products towards specialized agricultural production and social complexity. The realization of these two things required overproduction and a regional network of goods exchange (Zvelebil 1985). It is quite possible that South-West Finland developed a barter system between the archipelago and the coast to reduce the risks involved in agriculture: the natural products of the archipelago and what was produced by the islanders themselves could be exchanged for the products of the mainland regions which were specialized in agriculture. In this way the agrarian economy of the mainland might have proceeded towards a further specialization in agricultural products and a more effective production of food. The latter aspects can be considered to be the basis of the stabilized settlement (Salo 1995) and the great frequency of cemeteries (Seger 1982 b; Lehtonen 2000) in South-West Finland. This idea might be illustrated by a historical example, the extensive network of contacts between the peasants of the parishes in the archipelago of Åboland and those of the mainland. The islanders transported fish, meat, butter, eggs and firewood to Stockholm, the towns in the region of the lake Mälaren, the coastal parishes of southern Finland, Tallinn, and St Petersburg to be exchanged for grain, salt, hemp, and iron. The fishermen-peasants of the archipelago were dependent on the trade in the centres of population on account of their own petty grain production; on the other hand, the centres of population were equally dependent on the products of the archipelago (Villstrand 1993; Orrman 1991: 262–264; Kerkkonen 1978; Papp 1986; cf. Modéer 1945).

Actually we might have some evidence of a system of exchanging goods between the archipelago and the coast: the dwelling site of Kyrksundet in Dragsfjärd. The finds from this community which was used chiefly from the 9^th to the 11^th century, consist of artefacts which suggest contacts with the Finnish mainland. There is, for instance, a key-formed pendant with an equivalent at Rapola, Valkeakoski in Häme (a province in Finland). Most of the artefacts, some of which are Oriental or European coins, indicate, however, contacts with Sweden, Åland or Estonia. Some twenty weights among the finds are obvious indications of trading activity at the site. Torsten Edgren suggests that the trading site at Kyrksundet was established by peasants from Halikko and Perniö who first stayed at the site only seasonally but from the 10^th century all the year round. They carried on trade with the Vikings who sailed past the coast (Edgren 1995 a; Edgren 1995 b). There is, however, no need to imagine that participation in the Baltic goods exchange should have excluded the bartering contacts with the mainland, actually the result was just the opposite. If the settlers of Kyrksundet came from Halikko and Perniö, the barter trade with their original home region would seem as natural as the cooperation with the Vikings.

The archipelagean zone of the Finnish coast is the widest in Åboland and Åland. It comprises extensive sheltered areas where the fishing boats need not be as big and heavy as on the open coasts. On the other hand, it was relatively difficult to move in the archipelago due to the numerous underwater shallows, which hampered the exploitation of and the competition for the natural resources by outsiders. Due to land uplift new shoals continued to emerge out of the deep water – naturally at a fairly slow pace. When the commission of goods and products for foreign exchange of goods was being organized in the region around Turku (Pihlman 1985 b), the transportation of the merchandise required the establishment of a local knowledge of navigational circumstances. Although pilots on the Finnish waters were first mentioned in the Middle Ages (Lähteenoja 1947; Öhman 1996), it is quite evident, e.g. according to Henrik Cederlöf; that pilotage had been organized earlier than what is related in written sources (Cederlöf 1989: 15). There is a possible early juncture in the 8^th century when new changes developed in the Baltic market. Prior to the 8^th century the imported goods consisted of luxury articles and other products, and their price was determined by supply and demand, but also by the mutual social relationships between those who participated in the exchange of goods. From the 8^th century onwards, trading became a market-based long-distance commercial activity, and it was no more necessary for the participants in the exchange to have any specific social relationships with each other (Pihlman 1985 b; Näsman 1984: 121–128; Näsman 1991). This century was also a period when the scope of the exchange enlargened to the area of Volga and Kama in Russia (Salo 1982: 11–18). The local knowledge of the islanders has surely been the nearest available solution when solving the problems of pilotage in the archipelago.