Archaeological Survey on Finnish/Russian Border

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Under a NSF Archaeology Program `High Risk Exploratory Grant` Drs. Ezra Zubrow and Milton Nunez and their collaborators will survey a 500 meter wide strip on the Finnish side of the Finnish - Russian border. For security purposes both countries cleared similar areas on each side of the border and only now, with the easing of international tensions is the Finnish portion available for scientific research. Since much of this region in central Finland is heavily vegetated and dense forest will regenerate quickly a unique opportunity with a narrow time window has presented itself. The team will conduct a systematic surface survey to locate as many sites as possible. These will carefully recorded with a global positioning system and particular attention will be paid to clusters of occurrences. A magnetometer will be employed to search for underground features and surface materials will be recorded. On the basis of these remains it should be possible to date the sites to a general time interval and to determine basic subsistence mode. This region of Finland was colonized ca. 8,000 BC after the retreat of the terminal Pleistocene glaciers. The earliest inhabitants were Mesolithic hunter gatherers. Later peoples practiced both reindeer herding and subsistence agriculture. The long term goal of the project is to study human ecology and subsistence adaptation in this environmentally marginal area. The investigators wish to understand how these three distinct subsistence lifestyles interacted: whether they followed each other in a linear fashion or co-existed and alternated in a more complex way. They also want to determine the relationship of these adaptations to the different environmental zones located within the survey area. This research is important because it will provide basic archaeological information on a geographic region which is almost archaeologically unknown. It addresses a significant question in human ecology and hopefully will lay the groundwork for a larger scale research effort.