Wednesday 23 May 2018

The stone age mysteries of Porvoo next!

With the excavation of the neolithic stone age dwelling site in Helsinki behind us, our "time team" now heads for the lovely small town of Porvoo! Here we will excavate a beautiful stone age dwelling site 8-17.6.2018.

 The picturesque old town of Porvoo. Picture porvoo.fi

The muncipality of Porvoo is situated on the southern coast of Finland approximately 50 kilometres east of Helsinki. It is one of the six medieval towns in Finland, first mentioned as a city in texts from the 14th century. The Porvoo Old Town is a popular tourist destination, known for its well-preserved 18th and 19th century buildings and 15th century cathedral, the Porvoo Cathedral. 

Finds from the Roman Iron Age burial at "Pikkulinnanmäki" in Porvoo. Picture Markku Haverinen.

But Porvoo also has a great prehistory with intriguing finds frome both the stone- and bronze ages and of course the iron-age. Many famous Finnish archaeologists have made excavations here over the years but this is the first large scale community archaeology excavation in this area.

A small book about the prehistory of Porvoo.

Our focus of interest will be in the neolithic stone age of the previously rather poorly known dwelling site of Vävarsbacka II. Finds from many different time periods (comb ceramic pottery, corded ware pottery and asbestos tempered ware) have previously been found here but the site has been poorly documented and therefore not much is known about the context the finds belong to.

Archaeology student Teemu Väisänen(left) and archaeologist Janne Soisalo (center) on the look for the stone-age in Porvoo during our visit to Vävarsbacka in May 2018. Photo Jan Fast.

The exiting journey started yesterday, when I lectured about the stone age and archaeology to 24 of the participants of the upcoming excavation at Borgå Medborgarinstitut. Can´t wait for the dig to start!


Sunday 20 May 2018

Excavating the neolithic in Helsinki day three

Day three of the trial excavations of the neolithic dwelling site in Pitäjänmäki, Helsinki. A nice amber pendant, a nail shaped tool, lots of neolithic pottery, burnt bone etc.

Baltic amber pendant.

Ka II:2 pottery with the typical rhombic decoration.

The trail excavation revealed a previously unknown area of the dwelling site and we will continue the excavations on this marvelous site next summer. All ages welcome <3 !

 Future archaeologists got to touch the 5500 year old artefacts.

Children excavating the sieved sand.

Janne S. my right hand man at the excavation.

At the end of this day we filled in the trial excavation trench. Next years excavation are will be an extension to this trench.

 Time to take to the showel.

 Trial excavation trench filled up.

Saturday 19 May 2018

Archaeology from WW2 to the stone-age in one day

Yesterday we finally opened up the first ever WW2 conflict archaeology exhibition in Finland. Please visit Hanko Museum to experience the tragic events in this small coastal town in the southernmost part of Finland, where thousands of German soldiers passed every day on their way to the "Nordfront".
"Durchgangslager Hanko 1942-1944" conflict archaeology exhibition.

Today it was back to the stone-age again. Wonderful finds and the best excavation team! Below are some pictures of the neolithic stone-age finds from this amazing site today!!

Flint knife 1/1

Neolithic pottery 1/1000

Digging it!

Sieving it!


Monday 14 May 2018

Second visit to "Durchganglager Hangö" 11-13.5.2018

Photographer Japo Knuutilas tireless effort to document the decaying remains of the former German barracks at  Cape Tulliniemi continued last weekend. Below are a few photos from hos fieldtrip in fabulous spring weather. On Saturday May 19th the conflict archaeology exhibition "Durchgangslager Hanko 1942-1944" will open up in Hanko Museum!





Sunday 6 May 2018

First fieldtrip of the 2018 excavation season!

Today it was time for the first fieldtrip this season in summery weather. We visited two neolithic sites in order to choose which of them is best suitable for a community archaeology dig in mid June 2018.

The stone-age dwelling  site of Vävarsbacka II in Porvoo.

It soon turned out that the first of the sites (Ilola) had been completely destroyed. The other site (Vävarsbacka II) proved to be in a much better state of preservation although it too had suffered by a gravel pit that had eaten away much of the center part of dwelling site. The excavations here start on June 7th.

Comb ceramic potsherd (Ka II:2) from the Vävarsbacka II site

The landowner at Ilola showed us a neolithic arowhead his late father had found in a flower bed near his house in Ilola. Sadly there was no way of telling where the soil in the flower bed was from.

Heart shaped neolithic arrowhead from Ilola.

Saturday 5 May 2018

Inspecting possible excavation sites in Porvoo

Tomorrow it´s finally time for the first archaeology fieldtrip of 2018.

A neolithic stone axe.

We will visit two neolithic dwelling sites in Porvoo mainly to see which one of them is more suitable for a community archaeology dig. The dig is financed by Porvoon kansalaisopisto and is scheduled for 7.6-15.6.2018.

The stone.age dwelling sites (in red) in the former archipelagoon a LIDAR map.

Thursday 3 May 2018

The 2018 research season of "Durchgangslager Hanko" has started!

Yesterday on May 2nd 2018 photographer Japo Knuutila ventured on his first documentation trip of 2018. The aim was to document the "Baracke" of the "Entlausungsdorf" area before the leaves break an the area is totally covered in green.






During his visit Japo took both still pictures and videos of the former German barracks area. He will be back to document the area again next week.

"Durchgangslager Hanko 1942-1944"


A Confict Archaeology Exhibition in Hanko Museum 
19.5.2018 - 31.3.2019