Saltwiik – Boo – Kvarnbo (PART 5)

Some reflections on the Early Medieval Åland – settlement reduction or continuity

by Jan-Henrik Fallgren

The distribution of Late Iron age settlement layers and house foundations on the Åland Islands. The house foundations have been divided into four size categories, each subdivided into groups of investigated and uninvestigated structures. The shoreline roughly consistent with that of Iron Age (from Ilves 2017).

The reason why the early medieval settlement on Åland usually has been seen as solely consisting of single farms, is first and foremost due to the lack of knowledge of the early medieval (pre-manor) villages; their appearance, organisation, structure and layout, and the way they came to being. Instead, it has been the image of the high medieval and late medieval planned, regular shaped village with sub-divided fields, that has been used as a master sample of villages as a phenomenon. This becomes of course totally wrong, because Iron Age and early medieval kin-based villages (pre-manor) in Europe had as a rule quite different layouts and structures. Usually, but not always, they had a more dispersed layout, where the farms in the same village where set apart from each other, and connected to each other and the commons outside the fenced lands through cattle paths. Further, common fields did not exist within these villages in those time periods. This is also evident from all early medieval Germanic and Celtic laws. Instead, each farm had its own separately fenced field and meadowland, directly connected to the farmyard of each farm, why a distance of between 50–200 m often was created between the farms in the same village.

Another reason why various researchers have thought that the settlement consisted only of single farms is that no one has made any calculation about how much the destruction by cultivation has affected the preservation of the Viking Age settlement in the archipelago. Instead, they have usually only made calculations using the small number of houses left today at each separate location. Considering the fact that possible areas to cultivate in the archipelago only are available in limited smaller pockets between larger rocky areas, the destruction by cultivation of settlements remains on Åland must therefore have been very extensive.

Before the feudalisation, partible heritage was dominating as inheritance principle among the people in northwestern Europe. This is also reflected in the most known early Germanic, and Celtic laws, as well as in high medieval Nordic laws. In some of the oldest laws it appears that the eldest son usually inherits the paternal farm, while the younger build new farms in the vicinity. As long as there was space in the landscape, these kin-based illages and hamlets where thus growing into larger units. This course of events is also supported by several archaeological excavations of burial grounds nearby villages in many different parts of Europe, as well as some types of place-names such as the –ingas and –inge names. The glue that held those early medieval villages and hamlets together was thus kinship, and it was kinship and partible inheritance that created them!

In these parts of Scandinavia where intensive (feudal) lordship never was introduced, and where free farmers still dominated, it is well known, from post-medieval periods up to modern times, that they consisted of a bunch of related. Moreover, the layout of these villages had more in common with the pre-historic and early medieval villages and hamlets, than contemporary geometrically shaped villages with common and sub-divided fields.

…to be continued 🙂

Saltwiik – Boo – Kvarnbo (PART 4)

Some reflections on the Early Medieval Åland – settlement reduction or continuity

by Jan-Henrik Fallgren

The large number of young names on Åland, together with the fact that we still can detect a settlement and farming continuity from the high medieval period and backwards, strongly suggest that the submission of Åland into the Swedish realm was violent and involuntary. Exactly when this might have happened is of course very difficult to say, but it must have happened some time during the Crusades. According to a legend, the Swedish king Erik Jedvardsson, together with bishop Henrik, made a crusade to Finland in 1155. Later on, bishop Henrik became a saint and the apostle of Finland. However, it is certain that the Danes sent military expeditions to Finnish areas in 1191 and in 1202. The first mention of a bishop in Finland is in a letter, dated to the year 1209, written by the Pope Innocentius III to Archbishop Andreas Sunesen in Lund. Per Olof Sjöstrand has suggested that the Swedish king Sverker Karlsson, who was married to a daughter of Andreas brother Ebbe Sunesen, was involved in the Danish expedition in 1202, and that the Finnish bishopric was created at that occasion. This is highly likely. Sverker Karlsson, and the Sunesen brothers, had several common projects, both in Sweden and in the Baltic. Sverker’s successor on the throne, Knut Eriksson, conducted several war expeditions to Finland, and received the pope’s blessing for this in 1216, the same year he died. 1249 Birger jarl made a crusade to the eastern parts of Finland, and during the reign of Magnus Ladulås at the end of 13^th century, a number of castles were built in Finland, and the Swedish control increased considerably over this new part of the country. He also placed his brother as the Duke of Finland. Perhaps it was after these events, that the majority of Swedish colonists came to Åland and Finland. “They possessed the country with Christian men”, as is said in Erikskrönikan from the 1320s, glorifying Birger jarl and his lineage. Anyhow, the time period between 1202 and the beginning of the 14^th century, seems to me as the most probable period for the Swedish crown to attract or force people, from Öland, Hälsingland, Gästrikland and probably other parts of Sweden, to settle down in the archipelago of Åland. This must also have been the time period, when a large number of older settlement names disappeared, and the many place-names with –by as suffixes came to be.

When speaking about place-names with –by as suffixes, and villages, something short must be mentioned about the Swedish word and concept by. The Swedish word by has for a very long time, and in everyday speech denoted the opposite of a single farmstead, i.e. a village/hamlet. Etymologically, the word is derived from an Old Norse word that formed the stem of the verb bo (live/stay), with the meaning: ‘put in order’, ‘prepare to take possession of and cultivate’. Originally, the word was designed for either a farm or a village, but eventually the concept came to denote only larger settlements. This seems to have taken place during the Viking Age, at the latest, since there are several rune stones in Sweden, whose wording and content clearly shows that the word by was used to contemplate a village. Thus, all these Ålandic settlement names with a suffix –by must have designated villages/hamlets from the beginning. In historical times there were quite a large number of villages on Åland, and even some really large villages, which strongly indicate that there existed favourable topographical and ecological conditions for the occurrence of villages also from at least the end of prehistoric times (the Merovingian and Viking periods). This is also confirmed by the many large burial sites on Åland, for example at Saltvik/Kvarnbo, Lagmansby and Godby.

…to be continued 😉

Saltwiik – Boo – Kvarnbo (PART 3)

Some reflections on the Early Medieval Åland – settlement reduction or continuity

by Jan-Henrik Fallgren

If we return to the question of discontinuity or continuity, and consider what place-names can say about this matter, it is obvious that the majority of the place-names of Åland are of younger types. Above all, the many –böle, –bo names, and the numerous –by names with a person name as the first element, which are considered to have been popular during the high medieval and late medieval periods (but still, there are also a few other names, topographic names, that might be of older origin). Thanks to new pollen investigations, supporting the older ones, and a few new excavations, it is equally obvious today that there were continuous cultivation and settlement in large parts of the archipelago, as well as an intensified clearing of the landscape and an increase in land use during the Viking Age and the high medieval period.  How can one understand this contradictory information? Is it possible to understand these conflicting data at all? Well, I actually think it may be possible.

First, one must accept the idea that settlements could change their original names, and that this could affect villages/hamlets in an entire region. If we extend our gaze slightly further afield to other parts of Europe, this phenomenon appears to be much more common than one might first imagine. The British Isles can serve as a good example. Firstly, when the Anglo-Saxons invaded the eastern parts of Britain during the 5^th and 6^th centuries, they took over already existing settlements, villages and hamlets named with British or Roman names, and gave them new Anglo-Saxon names. Furthermore, they built a few completely new settlements. The same thing happened when Gaelic people or culture spread from western Scotland to the Pictish eastern and northern parts of Scotland, during the 9^th century. The same happened when the Vikings from Norway conquered and settled in the northern and western parts of Scotland during the 9^th and 10^th centuries, and again when Danish Vikings invaded the eastern Anglo-Saxon regions, and renamed a large number of villages and hamlets. A large proportion of the latter were given names of the same type as the Ålandic –by names, that is by-names with a personal name as the first element! Then again, after the battle of Hasting 1066, it was time to rename a bunch of settlements again. Now, it was added a large number of Norman, Flemish and French names to the “British names flora”. It is possible to line up a lot of other examples from Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Iberian Peninsula and others, but I shall confine myself with these examples. What is important with these examples is to show that the settlements that changed names, or had relatively young names, need not to have suffered a prolonged devastation and depopulation. Instead, the new younger names were caused by conquest, changed sovereignty, migration or cultural fusion. The majority of the settlements as such, and the farmlands, have in those examples survived several invasions, re-naming and changed lordship or sovereignty, even though in many instances the people living in the villages could have changed during these dramatic events. This is shown very illustratively in the case of Wharram Percy in Northumberland, England’s most excavated village. The settlement started as an Iron Age hamlet around 50 BC. It survived the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman conquests, but changed size and layout after most of them, and was finely abandoned in the 16^th century.  It is also known that the name of the settlement was amended several times.

If we then return to Åland and consider when, and under what circumstances, the archipelago acquired its relatively young place-names, it is obvious that it must have happened between the end of the early medieval period and the middle of the high medieval period. This is exactly the period when the Baltic Crusading was taking place (this was also the time period suggested by Lars Hellberg, but he thought that the colonists arrived to a deserted group of islands). It is well known that both Danes and Swedes made several crusades/raids from the 1100’s onwards in the Finnish speaking areas. The political map in the Baltic region changed gradually from the year 1147, when Bernhard of Clairvaux proclaimed that the Christians in the region should pursue war against their ‘own heathens’, and thus the Baltic Sea would be ‘their Jerusalem’. Germans, Danes, different orders of knights and eventually Swedes, all representing the western Catholic Church, began to compete over land areas in the southern and eastern parts of the Baltic Sea, additionally encouraged by a religiously sanctioned ideology. From the east, the Novgorodians, representatives of the Orthodox Church also beset them. These where ruff times for the, not yet Christianized, eastern tribal societies and stateless kingdoms, that were not organized in larger political units with administrative structures, and therefore lacked access to any professional military apparatus. Furthermore, they were often in conflict with each other.

…to be continued 🙂

Saltwiik – Boo – Kvarnbo (PART 2)

Some reflections on the Early Medieval Åland – settlement reduction or continuity

by Jan-Henrik Fallgren

Because of the nature of Åland as an archipelago, the settlements have always been very scattered, distributed on a variety of islands. Despite this, one can distinguish several contiguous smaller settlement and farmland areas (bygder), naturally demarcated by water, forest and rocky areas. These areas are clearly shown by the concentrations of ancient monuments from the early medieval period, such as graves, grave-fields, and stone foundation houses. These concentrations correlate well with where the best farmland where situated on Åland, and where most settlements can be found at the oldest maps from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The archipelago’s six hill-forts are placed and built next to, or on the outskirts of, each larger contiguous farmland and settlement district within the island group.

Due to differences in the archaeological records within the archipelago, and the distribution of the hill-forts, it has been suggested by Jan Storå and others, that Åland consisted of two broad polities during the end of the pre-historic period; one north-eastern, with a strong connection to both eastern Sweden, and the coastal areas of present day Finland, and one south-western polity, exhibiting a more local or regional character. Both polities had a set of three hill-forts each. These sets of hill-forts have been interpreted as reflecting organized groups with social hierarchies and conventions of conduct differentiating themselves from other organized groups, i.e. as separate polities. This, I believe, is a highly probable interpretation in many ways. One might think that these six would be too small to constitute a political entity by themselves. The fact is that most Iron Age tribal political units and early medieval petty-kingdoms rarely were any larger than these. Usually they consisted of a single settlement district (bygd in Swedish, bygd and fylke in Norwegian, scir in Old English, mag and tuath in Old Irish, mag and howe in Gaelic Scottish, pays in French, gau in German, campus in Classical Latin, and regio in Medieval Latin), and sometimes two. These smaller units were usually also parts of, and the building blocks of, larger entities-kingdoms, where a hierarchy of kings was the normal situation.

There are 6 hill-forts on Åland that are placed and built next to, or on the outskirts of, each larger contiguous farmland and settlement district within the island group. Shoreline on the map: 10 m a.s.l that is roughly corresponding to the situation in the beginning of Late Iron Age

The hill-forts were always the biggest, the most potent expression, and often the most complex constructions within a territory in the regions of Europe where hill-forts were erected and built during the Iron Age and the early medieval period. No doubt they were collective structures, at regular intervals maintained, repaired or expanded collectively by the people living in the area. In those cases where the original name of the forts is known, and is not containing a god’s name as prefix, they were often named by the people, tribe, gens or kingdom where they were erected.  A kingdom could be named after a hill-fort, or the cliff or mountain where it was erected. There are also several known early medieval examples of a special kingship, a High kingship, named after a hill-fort, the fort where these kings where inaugurated. These High kingships always included several petty kingships, where the different petty kings were competing to gain the higher office, or where the High kingship was itinerant between some or all of the included petty kingdoms, or was itinerant between a few of the royal lineages in the region. All this, together with the fact that hill-forts often exhibit proof of communal feasting and plenty of ritual activities when excavated, demonstrates that hill-forts probably always had a primary communal symbolic and ritual function for those who used and built it. During martial context they could also be used as a last refuge.

Therefore, each of the Ålandic hill-forts can be regarded as symbolic manifestations for each of the six different cohesive settlement districts within the archipelago, representing six different polities/regions divided into two larger political units with three lesser in each. Perhaps they all had a common meeting point, gathering- or assembly place at the small island of Tingön, at the inlet to Kastelholm and Sund parish, as the name of the island certainly would indicate. In addition to the name itself, the island is located almost at the geographical centre point of the archipelago, which would fit extremely well into what we know about those kinds of places from other regions of Europe during the Iron Age and the early middle ages, for example Roma on Gotland, Uisneach on Ireland, and Carnutes in Gaul. This kind of gathering places were looked upon as the sacred centre, or navel of the earth, and constituted the axis mundi for the people gathering here.

…to be continued 🙂

Saltwiik – Boo – Kvarnbo (PART 1)

Some reflections on the Early Medieval Åland – settlement reduction or continuity

by Jan-Henrik Fallgren

There are some major unresolved and frustrating problems when it comes to Åland’s Iron Age, and the early historical periods. In particular, whether or not there has been continuity between the Viking Age settlement and the settlement known from the earliest written sources. There is today, and has been for some time, various opinions concerning this subject. However, since Lars Hellberg’s classical study of the place-names on Åland from 1980, many researchers believe that the archipelago was deserted between c. AD 1000 to at least the 12^th century. Others have pointed out that at least some of the settlements show continuity from the Viking Age to the end of 13^th century. The fact that no coins are found on Åland from the end of the Viking Age, has also been put forward as an important argument for the former opinion, or at least showed that the Ålanders suffered economically from a serious loss from the geopolitical map, due to the collapse of the earlier important east-western trade route during this century.

Lots of islamic coins have been found on Åland – all dating before AD 950. No coins* are found on prehistoric Åland from the end of the Viking Age.  *with one certain exeption of a fragmentary Anglo-Saxon penny of King Athelstan (924-939) (there are “rumours” of more).

Strangely enough, also the speedy shore displacement during the late Iron Age/Medieval Period has sometimes been mentioned in connection with the presumed desolation, or as one of the causes of population decline. This is really odd. In other geographical contexts, for instance the Mälaren Valley, a speedy shore displacement has always been regarded as something positive and beneficial for the contemporary agrarian economy and for the growth of the population. Both osteological and paloebotanical analyses reveal that the agrarian Viking Age economy on Åland was based on the same kind of farming practise as everywhere else in north-western Europe during this time period; that is an agricultural system based on cattle breeding, alongside with crop growing on a minor scale. Therefore, this land elevation must have been similarly beneficial to the agrarian economy of Åland, as rightly pointed out previously by Birgitta Roeck Hansen, Johan Callmer and Kristin Ilves.

As mentioned above, the Iron Age and Viking Age agrarian economy on Åland appears to have been exactly of the same type as in other parts of north-western Europe during the early medieval period, i.e. farming based mainly on animal husbandry together with small-scale cultivation of essentially barley, on few and very small fields. Actually, this was characteristic for all north-western early medieval kin-based, tribal societies, stateless petty kingdoms, ranked societies, traditional societies, or whatever you would like to call them, before what has been labelled the “cerialization” and “manoralization” of Europe occurred, when the feudal estate-system was born.  These transformations started in the western parts of Europe (Frankish) during the 8^th century, but accelerated strongly only when the reformed Catholic Church from the 10^th century onwards got a firmer grip on the political and ideological situation in Europe and thus could incorporate several larger kingdoms and regions in their economic and administrative system. However, these momentous changes did not arrive to our part of the world until the 13^th and 14^th centuries.

Before these radical economical and agrarian changes during the early medieval period, all social contracts, bonds and agreements within kin-based, tribal societies and petty kingdoms with their gift-giving economies, was confirmed and sealed by the receiving or giving of basically three different types of media; ale, livestock and women (neither pre-feudal nobility or kings built their wealth or social positions by some major land ownership or estates, instead it was food-rent and hospitality from free clients, and these clients obligations to participate in war and plundering, that gave pre-feudal lords and kings their social positions and economical resources). And of course, if there were access to exotic objects, like glass vessels, silver or other precious metals in the form of foreign coins, or melted down and remoulded coins to prestige objects; these were also part of such socio-economic transactions and situations, such as tribute, payment or fiefs by lords or kings to clients. However, absence or lack of coins or precious metals in those kinds of societies was not a problem or a catastrophe, and, above all, it would never have made people to abandon their fields and farms, and it did not lead to starvation. They did not live in a market economy. So any drop off from the geopolitical map, or the fact that the silver trade was interrupted for the people on Åland during the 11^th century, could hardly have caused any serious crisis in the agrarian economy or society at large (except, perhaps to a few individuals). Above all, it would not have been the cause of any possible depopulation of the islands.

…to be continued 🙂

Buttons

Now, I’m no expert on buttons, but you’d be amazed how much research there has been done on this subject! As an example for the Nordic areas, there is a book by Otto Helander “Något om knappens historia i Sverige” (Something about the history of button in Sweden). The following knowledge I am about to share comes from this book and some diverse places in the Internet.

During prehistoric times, buttons were rare in the North. Well, there are button-like things known from Bronze Age, but then they disappear. During Late Iron Age, Viking Age in particular, buttons reappear in the North, but these are pretty much exclusively connected to the oriental connections. It is only starting from medieval times and from the 14^th century when the real history of buttons starts. This coming of button was connected to the change in clothing – from long and flowing to tight. However, at first, buttons were just something for the clothes of wealthy people and these were, furthermore, mainly used as decoration and not as methods of closing clothing (for which lacing or hooks were used). From the end of the 16^th century buttons became more common, but it is still only from the 18^th century when buttons really did appear on the clothing of workers and peasants – at first, on male attire and from the mid 19^th century also on female attire.

Unfortunately, among ca 30 buttons that I have documented during metal detector surveys at the Kvarnbo Hall site (from all over the field without any particular area of concentration), there isn’t a single one that I would dare to state to be older than the 18^th century. But from the typological point of view, it can be stated that cast brass buttons with concave panel clearly dominate the material. Very similar to these are cast brass buttons with the flower motive in the middle that I have also discovered from my site. These kinds of buttons were one of the more prevalent types used by common people. There were many vests and pants with exactly these kinds of buttons during the late 18^th and, especially, 19^th century. Btw, in Finnish, the type with the flower motive in the middle has even its own name – Kansanpuvun nappi (folk costume button).

The most common type of button today, the 4-hole button was adopted only in the end of the 19^th and in the beginning of the 20^th century. At first, by men, but after the WW I, when more masculine female fashion became popular, also by women. Such buttons are very boring as these don’t allow any pattern on the button; I would also deem the two 4-hole buttons discovered at the Kvarnbo Hall site as the most mundane of buttons at the site. At the same time, the most interesting button from Kvarnbo has to be the very large and crudely made 2-hole button. Mostly because I haven’t seen anything alike before 🙂 (Actually, I’m not even sure if it is a button.).

Back to metal – modern “junk” (?)

If you thought that I am done sharing about my new actuality of metal detecting, you are wrong – I intend to continue taking up aspects this new vocation of mine has inspired me to (and -yes- at some point, there will be some newly discovered Late Iron age findings presented as well 😉 ).

When I started to work with metal detector, I expected to find and dig a lot of what is considered to be junk. And, at first, looking at the growing amount of my finds, I thought that I am, indeed, finding a lot of junk. I do dig what I am sure most of people consider rubbish, such as foil and bottle caps. I also dig bullets and cartridge cases, which I consider as a junk, but I do know that there are people (including archaeologists) who are interested in such finds. But then, there is a number of finds that I considered as a junk, but I am about to reconsider – to some degree. The thing is that while presenting detector findings by just laying these on the table, many people often reach to look at things they recognise. And among the findings that I have made – in addition to coins – thimbles, keys and buckles have great popularity 🙂

From the Kvarnbo Hall site I have discovered one thimble in the form of a ring and two customary thimbles, but I have no good idea about their age. The problem with the thimbles that were used simply solely for pushing a needle through fabric or leather as it is sewn and not as collectibles is that they look very alike throughout centuries. However, in rough terms, analysing the small dimples on the thimble might help with dating – before the middle of the 18^th century dimples were done by hand and, thus, a thimble with an irregular pattern of dimples dates likely before the mid 18^th century. Furthermore, from the mid 18^th century, the shape of thimbles is much less domed than before, and the metal is thinner. From the three thimbles found at the Kvarnbo Hall site, one has clearly handmade dimples and seems to be older than the other two.

When it comes to keys it is probably easier to determine their age. In case of the two keys discovered in Kvarnbo, however, I can only say that none of these is from the Late Iron Age, because Iron Age keys just look different. Both keys are quite so small and the better preserved one looks more like a key used for a clock… for a table clock?… Just as the keys, buckles are also easier to date than thimbles and browsing through the Internet, you can find quite a lot of information about buckles – for example, following this link. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that I can say anything sensible about the buckles I have dug so far 😛

People are and have always loosing things. While losing a thimble or a buckle wasn’t probably such a big loss, losing a key must have been quite annoying. But losing a ring might be emotionally devastating – I have found a simple finger ring of silver from the Kvarnbo Hall site and I do think that the loss of it made someone sad back in the history. But again, I have no good idea about how far back in the history we should put this item. From my “Late Iron age point of view” it is a non-diagnostic item (and thereby fairly junkish 😉 ).

A land in between

Scandinavia and the World: http://satwcomic.com/how-the-north-works

I think it is only justified to start with a brief overview of what is Åland about. First and foremost, today, it’s an archipelago of 6757 islands between Sweden and Finland. The archipelago is made up of rock slopes, heather moorland and pine forests with only about 9% (!) of land area being arable land. And there are additional 20,000 islands sized less than 0.25 hectares that are also part of the archipelago. However, those numbers are not static because of the ongoing shore displacement resulting in raised shorelines on Åland (shore displacement is an important phenomenon for the archaeology in the Baltic Sea region and I will clarify some aspects connected to it in my next post).

The population of Åland is about 28,000 – one third lives in Mariehamn, founded in 1851. Only c. 60 islands are inhabited, and the population density is approx. 18 people per km². Confusingly enough, although Åland is a part of Finland, the people of Åland speak Swedish that is an official language and there are, seriously, some people on Åland who throw a temper tantrum every time they see or hear the Finnish language… . Åland is also autonomous with its own devolved parliament and with its own flag of blue with a red Scandinavian cross fimbriated yellow.  Åland is demilitarized and neutralized, and has staggering 16 municipalities and 6 or so political parties. Åland is like “a country of its own”.

– How did it come to all of that? Well, for a long time, Åland was, along with Finland, a part of Sweden. But Sweden was forced to relinquish Finland and Åland to the Russian Empire in 1809. In 1917, when Finland gained its independence, the people of Åland wanted reunion with Sweden, but Finland rejected these demands, which led to the fact that an open conflict between Finland and Sweden was in the air. The question was solved by the newly formed League of Nations who granted Finland sovereignty over Åland in 1921, with an obligation to guarantee the people of Åland their use of Swedish language, their very Swedish culture as well as the system of self-government. In any case, becoming autonomous pretty much just fell into the arms of Åland.

Thus, Åland is also like “Sweden Light”; however, there is no question which ice-hockey team the people of Åland support when Finland and Sweden (or any other country for that matter) play against each other 😉 (Leijonat!)

You’ll find more numbers on Åland (in Swedish) at: http://www.asub.ax/files/alsiff13sv.pdf