Last day of the Kläppkärr excavation

Yeaterday we finished the excavation and filled up the 40 square meter excavation area. The wonderful stone-age finds continued to the last minutes of the dig.

Because of the severe heat the filling up of the excavation area proved a bit more harder than usual but thanks to all the wonderful people in the team the job went smoothly.

All of the thousands of excavation finds are now beeing cleaned and sorted. Radiocarbon datings are expected sometime next spring. The macrofossile samples will hopefully be analyzed in 2021.  

As for us it´s now time for a short break before the next community archaeology excavation in Vantaa Jokiniemi (S. Finland, larger Helsinki region) on July 8th. 

Day 5/6 of the Espoo Kläppkärr excavation

The excavation nears its end but beautiful pottery finds keeps turning up in layer three (40 cm below ground surface). Today some of the Early Comb Ceramic potsherds showed very intricate decoration indeed!

Ve recovered a couple of large Early Comb Ceramic potsherds in a sterile manner in order to secure representative radiocarbon dates and samples from the crust that has stuck to the inside the vessels.

The large potsherds were wrapped in tin foil and then packed into plastic bags. Photo Jan Fast.

We also encountered in what seems to be a small waste deposit pit from the Corded Ware Culture. Soil samples of this as well as a refuse pit with finds of large early comb ceramic potsherds were collected too.

Tomorrow it´s time to fill in the excavation areas and say goodbye to this wonderful site but  I´m sure nice finds will pop up until the ast minute of the dig :)

Two more beat up stone tools were recovered today. Photo Jan Fast.

Day 4/6 of the Espoo Kläppkärr excavation.

This day was Hot ("Hot like California") to quote Finnish rock band Reckless love ;)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV8wPokZNig . 

Also first time in my over 30 year long career as an archaeologist to have a birthday cake presented to me at the excavation along with the classic HBD song sung by the excavation team :)

After the tasty and very summery cake we continued the excavation. This 4th day produced interesting early comb ceramic finds including an intact slender chisel.

 

As is often the case with excavations of stone age dwelling sites, the potsherds increase in size when digging the deeper layers. This was true today too and some very nice early comb ceramic potsherds stated to surface in the southernmost part of the excavation area in layer three.

The finds of burnt bone continue to few and far between, Atm we are up to only approximately 30 bone fragments which is a very small amount indeed. Luckily a couple of the fragments are from joints and can possibly be identified by an osteologist at some stage.

Tomorrow we will probably finish of the deepest excavation layers over the whole excavation area. Let´s see what we find!

Day 3/6 of the Espoo Kläppkärr excavation

What a fantastic summers day (again) with lots of finds from the Corded Ware Culture! Thanks to the large number of participants and some extra helping hands todays work advanced very smoothly. The joy of participating in the excavation could be seen on everyones faces and even the clothing of some of the participants.

This colourful hat came from Spain. Photo Jan Fast.

The excavation continued to produce representative stone-age finds, potsherds in particular. The potsherds from the Corded Ware Culture dominated in number but the Early Comb Ceramic were very stylish.

Early Comb Ceramic potsherds. Photo Jan Fast.

Corded Ware Culture potsherds. Photo Jan Fast.

Tomorrow we will be extending the trial excavation area a bit to the west where we hope to be able to find the upper (older) find zone. Thumbs up and let´s see what tomorrow will bring.

Summer <3 . Photo Jan Fast.

Day 2/6 of the Espoo Kläppkärr archaeological excavation

A beautiful summers day (+27 C) with hundreds of finds mostly from the corded ware culture ca 2900-2200 BC but also tens of early comb ceramic finds ca 4500-4200 BC.

Corded Ware Culture potsherd (top) and Early Comb Ceramic potsherd (bottom). In Situ photo Jan Fast.

During this second day of excavations our team managed to dig through the first 10 cm:s of the estimated 30 cm thick find layer. 

The first larger item was a whetstone with the looks of a femur (bone). Interesting quartz cores found during todays excavation might help to gain insight in the quarts technology of the Corded Ware Culture.

 

Tomorrow we will dig into layer two :)

The 2020 archaeology field season started today!

Finally time for some community archaeology fieldwork here in Finland after the stressfull months with the Covid 19 pandemic.

The car jampacked with field gear for the 1st dig of the 2020 season.

We kicked off the JFA field season in tremendous summer weather with a team of 15 participants and two assistants. The stone age dwelling site in the famous Sperrings region produced very nice corded ware culture finds from the first minutes of the dig!

The beautiful gravel road that leads to the Kläppkärr" site.

The part of the dwelling site where the first finds were encountered in the 1930´s.

And the fully preserved dwelling site area in the forest nearby.

Digging it!

First finds and more to come... To be continued.

The JFArchaeology 2020 community archaeology field season kicks off on June 22nd!

Lot´s of exciting excavations coming up this season when we excavate sites from the stone-age to the Second World War in 13 different locations.

The starting point this year is Espoo Kläppkärr where we continue the research of a well preserved dwelling site dating to the early comb ceramic and corded ware cultures.

Espoo, Kläppkärr.

After a weeks rest after this its time for the 2020 excavation in Vantaa Jokiniemi a site renowned for it´s anthropomorphic clay figurines and rich finds from the typical and late comb ceramic cultures.

Vantaa, Jokiniemi.

In mid July we will be excavating the WW2 battlefields of the Hanko front. It is still possible to register for this excavation  by contacting Hangö Sommaruni!! https://hangosommaruni.fi/

Hanko 1941.

August will be a very busy month indeed with excavations in several different locations. First neolithic stone-age sites in Raseborg, Porvoo, Kirkkonummi and Kimito and Kouvola and last WW2 Conflict Archaeology in Hanko (possiby the German transition camp).

Porvoo, Vävarsbacka II.

In mid September we will continue our research of the beautiful riverside stone-age settlement in Lohja with both schools and archaeology enthusiasts.

Lohja, Kittiskoski E.

The season will then be rounded off in October with an excavation of the historic Annisto homestead with children from Vuoreksen koulu.

Tampere, Annisto.

Death, Repatriation and Reburial

Today we opened up the 2020 season at the Hanko Front Museum. Please visit this amazing war museum the new theme exhibition and especially the temporary exhibition about the scientific and ethic repatriation of war dead of the Hanko Front in the early stages of  "Operation Barbarossa".

Despite the Covid 19 situation the amazing war museum is safe to visit and offers a nice cafe as well as many outdoor activities, including battlefield archaeology digs in July and August 2020.

On the importance of a good team

Today we did a full 15 hours of hard work in trying to locate the lost grave of 13 Soviet soldiers killed during fierce fighting on a tiny skerry off Hanko in late July 1941. While we didn´t find the exact location of the massgrave I´m convinced that we will finish the job later this year.

Part of todays hard work. Original archive picture by courtesy of an important contributor to the Hanko 1941 project who wishes to remain anonymous, colour photo from todays fieldwork by BA Aleksi Rikkinen and "now and then edit"  by MA Jan Fast.  

Modern conflict archaeology of war graves is teamwork at it´s very best. Without the help of a multitude of experts and talented archive and oral tradition researchers an archaeologist like me would be left totally in the dark. As many of you who help us out wish to remain anonymous I will try to express my deepest gratitude in the form of this post and this picture that capture what I feel is the essence of our work.

And last but not least our work is about people lost. Trying to find out their names and stories so that the devastation nature of a world will never be forgotten. Every soldier despite of his or her nationality deserves a grave and a name.

On the road again

The Covid 19 situation over here in Finland forced us to rearrange the 2020 community archeology excavation season. Despite the harsh times it seems that we will finally be able to get out there again on June 22nd :)

JFA road map for 2020

All excavations will this year be carried out as a trial excavation with every participant having their own small excavation area at a safe distance from the other participants. Special attention is also paid to hygiene and other issues during the excavation and every participant has his own personal excavation equipment during the excavation.

 See you all soon 🙂

The stone-age seascape of Vantaa

Prior to the upcoming community archaeology excavations in Jokiniemi, Vantaa S. Finland I thought you might like to take a look at this very nice animation of the land upheaval and shoreline displacement in  Vantaa. Please click on the link below the photo to access the animation!

The changing shoreline of Vantaa (by Jussi Kinnunen/Geonautica)

The animation was made by Vantaa City Museum for the "River" (Joki-Kivikaudesta Kaljakelluntaan) exhibition 2015-2016.