School days

Tomorrow is a great day as I will be travelling to Hanko S, Finland to reconnect with students from the may/june conflict archaeology dig of "Deutsches Lager Hanko.

Students digging into the WW2 history of Hitler´s war in the north.

I will be participating in a panel discussion with the students of Hankoniemen Lukio and the "International History Class". The students  will be presenting their research around WW2 in Hanko and I will be commenting on their research results from a conflict archaeology point of view.

Let´s see what the students have to say about the archaeological finds :)

WW2 "DEUTSCHES LAGER HANKO" excavation 14-16.10.2016 !

German WW2 RAD pin from Deutsches Lager Hanko.

I can finally confirm that we will be excavating and surveying "Deutsches Lager Hanko" on October 14-16th (Friday-Sunday). The excavation is open to anyone interested in world war two history. There is no participation fee. Work on site will be from 10-18, no previous experience  of conflict archaeology is required.

German and Finnish dogtags found during the 2016 excavations.

The research is part of my doctoral dissertation about the large German WW2 transition camp in Hanko, Tulliniemi S. Finland. We are working in close co-operation with the Finnish defence forces and the police. The excavation is financed by Hangö Sommaruniversitet.

German wound badge from "Deutsches Lager Hanko".

The town of Hanko offers several inexpensive accomodation alternatives this time of year. For accomodation in Hanko check out

http://tourism.hanko.fi/en/majoitusliikkeet/

Please send your letters of interest to jfarchaeology@gmail.com as soon as possible!

See you in Hanko!

Jan

Back home from the EAA (European Association of Archaeologists) annual meeting in Vilnius, what a fantastic experience!

I had the great priviledge to join some 1500 fellow archaeologist for a few happy days in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Vilnius (the old town), view from my hotel.

I participated in a few sessions and held a presentation about the large scale community archaeology digs organized by HEUREKA the Finnish Science Centre 1990-1994 and 2014-2015.

From the excavations in  2015.

Of course it was mostly about the anthropomorphic clay figurines found there but I also gained some new good contacts in the field od Neolithic Research.

One of the many venues.

                                          

Two of the Neolithic figurines from Vantaa Jokiniemi and below one from Gipka in Latvia.

I have to say I enjoyed my stay very, very much. After a hectic 2016 field season the days in Vilnius felt like a holiday. I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the arrangers as well as all the wonderful archaeologists from Scandinavia, Russia and Belorus and Finland I met in Vilnius. Next year the annual meeting of EAA will be in Maastricht, hope to see You all again there!

http://www.eaacongress.org/r/home

Almost autumn... the 2016 dig is almost over.

Despite of the 2016 main archaeological excavations of "Deutsches Lager Hanko 1942-1944"  beeing over for the summer season, we are still continuing documentation work as well as and small scale digging at the site until snow falls.

Below are a few finds from our latest visit to this (for Finnish circumstances) extraordinary large and well preserved WW2 site.

A well preserved German "Likör" bottle from the Benedictiner Monastery of Ettal in Bavaria Germany..

Kloster Ettal.

Below are some small telltale items of the "Waffenbruderschaft". Finnish porcelain lemonade and beer  bottle caps.

 "Helsingin Virvoke Oy" (Helsinki)

"Aura" brewery (Turku).

I would like to thank "Hangö Sommaruniversitet" for understanding the value of the Community Archaeology effort of this project as well as the Scientific part in 2016.

Last but not least I would like to thank the Finnish Defence Forces and the Finnish Police (Raseborg district) for their support and help in 2016. We are of course beeing extra careful when researching the area but we need your co-operation and help now and in the future 2016-2018. I´m looking forward to our meetings in the upcoming weeks.

An unexploded , highly dangerous 81 mm mortar grenade found during our research and promptly removed and dismantled by the Finnish Defence Forces/Police authorities in July 2016.

Metal Detecting in Finland - An Ongoing Debate

Here´s as interesting new article (Suzie Thomas, Anna Wessman and Leena Koivisto) on a couple of issues regarding metal detecting in Finland.

http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opar.2016.2.issue-1/opar-2016-0006/opar-2016-0006.xml?format=INT

More finds from Suomussalmi !!!

The number of late iron age axe heads keep mounting (now five and counting).

Here are a couple more late iron age axeheads for you to admire all pictures by Petri Anttonen! I´ll keep you updated about the finds here as things progress.

 Axehead number two.

 Axehead number two.

 Axehead number three.

Axehead number four.

The find site of these axes, close to the center of Suomussalmi,  was inspected by archaeologists Esa Suominen and Riikka Mustonen from the museum of Kainuu "Kainuun Museo".

http://www.kajaani.fi/fi/palveluopas/kulttuuri/kainuun-museo

Extremely interesting late iron age finds from Suomussalmi (NE Finland).

This must be one of the more intriguing finds this summer. Metal detectorist Petri Anttonen first found a late iron age axehead and today when another site he found was visited by archaeologists today even more items were recovered.

The first find, a large iron axe head, the find site of the axehead has not been documented yet.

The area is natural untouched forest by a lake. Even though the axehead was found directly underneath the topsoil there seems to be a small cairn like structure close to the find site too! According to Anttonen small bronze fragments were also recovered at the findspot.

A grave? What appears to be a viking age E-type spearhead.

The find site.

Congratulations for these magnificient finds and thanks for reporting them to the archaeologists!

A similar grave find like the one with the spearhead was reported last year. Below is a link to an article (in Finnish) about the previous find.

http://www.kaleva.fi/uutiset/pohjois-suomi/suomussalmelta-loytyi-ristiretkiaikainen-hauta/712624/

Excavating and documenting Deutsches Lager Hanko

The documentation of the German Barracks continues. Photo Japo Knuutila.

Today we visited "Deutsches Lager Hanko" again, the idea was to mostly do documentation but because of the good weather and the talented crew we decided to do some digging too. Below area few of the hundreds of finds from today :)

Aluminium "Creme" container.

Louse comb.

Mess tin related aluminium and brass artefacts.

 Austrian "HARICH BRAUSE LIMONADE" bottle.

 German "PFLANZENSÄFTE" bottle

Another German antigas container (right).

"Laplands Dark Heritage" excavations in Inari started today

In the background Wesa Perttola (University of Helsinki) and Anni Tolppanen (University of Aberdeen)

Sad to see it in the pictures the weather looks very rainy indeed. The finds are mounting though. Some of the finds are of course very similar to the ones found earlier this season during the excavations of "Deutsches Lager Hanko". Good luck guys, you are doing an excellent job!

 Kettle from Inari.

Kettle from "Deutsches Lager Hanko".

Intriguing surface fnds!

200 l. standard "Kraftstoff" barrel.

Please follow the ongoing excavations here! 

http://blogs.helsinki.fi/lapland-dark-heritage/