New German WW2 dump area discovered at "Durchgangslager Hangö"

The trial excavations are progressing according to schedule. Today 5 students from Hankoniemen Lukio joined our team for the rest of the week. The finds are mounting too which is a good thing for the participating history class students. Many of them will be working with different themes surrounding the soldiers daily life in the camp.

German WW2 beer bottle.

 Damaged brass matchbox cover.

Today the students unearthed a previously unknown German WW2 dump area, apparently quite rich in finds. The following two days will probably be very interesting indeed.

WW2 find layer with a multitude of finds in the one square meter trial pit

WW2 conflict archaelogy in Hanko S. Finland 29.5-2.6.2017.

The 2017 field season of the conflict archaeological research in Hanko has just started. We are excavating the westernmost part of the large German "Durchgangslager" situated in Hanko s. Finland between 1942 and 1944. The first leg of the excavations are conducted by history students from two local schools (Hangö Högstadieskola and Hankoniemen lukio). This excacation is financed by Aktia Stiftelsen i Hangö sr.

Students from "Hangö Högstadieskola" excavating layer one of the German WW2 transition camp.

Despite the fact that we are only scraping off the topsoil, interesting WW2 finds are already surfacing. This time both Sovjet (1940-1941) and German (1942-1944).

 German 5 Pfennig coin (1941)

We are currently excavating in two different areas quite close to each other. Area 1 is a continuation of last years ecavation of a large German dump pit.  The excavation in area 2 is a trial excavation prior to large scale excavations of the site in June and July 2017.

 Trial pit in Area 2.

Removal of topsoil on excavation area 1.

The German finds so far have mostly consisted of cigarrette boxes, bottle glass, buckles, combs, mirror fragments, buttons and coins (1941). One large lid of some sort (found today) seems to bear Soviet text but we still need to find out what it says :)

 Russian text (?) but what does it say...

German soldiers combs, shaving mirror fragment and small strap buckle.

Great team (30.5.2017)!!!

Newly found stone-age hearths from Raseborg, Långåmossarna and Espoo, Urheilupuisto S. Finland

For the last couple of days we have been excavating a 6000-year old stone age dwelling site at Långåmossarna in Raseborg (S. Finland).

Drone photo of the area with the three hearths at Raseborg, Långåmossarna. Photo Max Hartwall.

At the same time another team of archaeologists have been excavating another site from the same time period in Espoo, ca 70 km east of Raseborg.

Two of the three stone-age hearths (layer two) from Långåmossarna (Raseborg).

Both sites have yielded many hearths and at least the eleven ones found in Espoo might be associated with the seasonal cooking of seal blubber during the period in question.

Hearth from Espoo, Urheilupuisto (layer one). Photo Mikroliitti Oy.

Bottom layer of a hearth from Espoo, Urheilupuisto. 

Great finds! It´s quite rare to have so many hearths found at the same time, and very interesting indeed to be able to compare them during the actual fieldwork. Sadly the hearths from Espoo only produced very limited amounts of dateable finds. We will have to wait until we get the results from the C-14 analysis until we know the excact chronology of the two sites.

Pottery (4000 BC) from Raseborg, Långåmossarna.

Excavating the corded ware culture dwelling site @ Långåmossarna

We have been waiting a year for this. Today it was finally time to start the excavation of the corded ware culture dwelling site area at Långåmossarna. Not so many finds yet but we are only scratching the surface at this point. I hope that tomorrow we will be able to share more pictures about the finds and especially the features (the hearths)!

Excavating layer one.

Corded ware culture hearth (in the foreground), layer two.

Here comes the summer!

Day two excavating the early Comb Ceramic dwelling site at Långåmossarna  with beautiful students from Ekenäs Gymnasium and Ms. Karin Tatsugawa from Hiroshima, Japan.

Ms. Tatsugawa shows off one of the many 6000-year old potsherds she found today.

The day started out warm and foggy but as soon as we started excavating the sun broke through the fog and we could excavate in wonderful summer weather (+22 degrees Celsius). As expected the finds started mounting up when we reached layer two.

The excavation area, approximately  in the middle of the picture at the edge of the gravel pit.

The students started by clearing of the remains of layer one, after which me and Tia documented the first excavation level with the help of history teacher Vilhelm Lindroos. The students who helped out with the cleaning of the excavation level were rewarded with Ice Cream :)

Excavation area level one. The smaller fire cracked stones are all from hearths destroyed by 

stone-age wave- and Ice erosion.

In 2017 we´re going after the eally small fragments of burnt bone (mostly fish). We have opened up a couple of smaller excavation areas for more closer inspection.

Archaeology student Tia (University of Helsinki) excavating the area of a refuse pit filled with small fragments of burnt bone.

Todays finds were mostly comprised of larger ornate potsherds, quartz and porphyry flakes and burnt bone.

Early comb ceramic pottery (4500-4300 BC)

Spring met summer today :)

The 2017 excavation season just started!

What a great week!

Last weekend we continued the Poetic Archaeology surveying of "Durchgangslager Hangö" with a permit from the landowner (Metsähallitus). With the official permit in hand it was now possible for us to take a closer look at the areas of the German transition camp that today are situated within the protected nature reserve area of Cape Tulliniemi.

Surveying "Durchgangslager Hangö" 13.5.2017. Photo Lasse Nyman

Although we were only scratching the surface we found acouple of very interesting find areas which we will excavate during the 2017 season. Below area a few finds from the first visit to Cape Tulliniemi later this year!

 Catholic WW2 prayer ring

German named "luggage" tag to Uffz. Franz Stäger.

German WW2 brass matchbox cover.

Today it was time to kickstart the excavations of the 6500 year old stone-age site at Långåmossarna in Raseborg (S. Finland). Over 20 students from the local schools showed up aand made a tremendous effort in clearing the top layers of the southernmost research area. Lots of finds too but more about those tomorrow. A big thanks to Karis-Billnäs Gymnasium and Ekenäs Gymansium for a superb day!

 The stone-age dwelling site @ Långåmossarna.

 The team 18.5.2017.

 Removing the topsoil.

 Topsoil successfully removed, time to excavate find layer 1.

"Side by side".