The Viking Age in Åland: Insights into Identity and Remnants of Culture PDF
Preview The Viking Age in Åland: Insights into Identity and Remnants of Culture
The Viking Age in ÅlAnd SuomAlAiSen TiedeAkATemiAn ToimiTukSiA humAniorA 372 AnnAleS AcAdemiÆ ScienTiArum FennicÆ The Viking Age in Åland insights into identity and remnants of culture ediTed BY Joonas Ahola Frog Jenni lucenius Annales Academiæ Scientiarum Fennicæ is part of the publishing co-operation between the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and the Finnish Society of Science and Letters. The series Humaniora continues the former ser. B. Editor: Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila Associate editor: Petteri Koskikallio Contact address: Dept. of World Cultures, P. O. Box 59, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland Email: [email protected] / [email protected] Copyright © 2014 Academia Scientiarum Fennica Cover: Juha Markula Cover illustrations: Front cover: Åland seen from above. Photo by Krystian Trela. © Krystian Trela. Back cover: Ornamented clothing pin: ÅM 292. Dräktnål found in Syllöda, Saltvik. Photo by Augusto Mendes. © Ålands Landskapsregering, Museibyrån. Distributor: Bookstore Tiedekirja Snellmanninkatu 13, 00170 Helsinki Finland Tel. +358-9-635 177 Fax + 358-9-635 017 Email: [email protected] Webstore: www.tiedekirja.fi ISSN 1239-6982 ISBN 978-951-41-1098-6 Printed by Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy, Sastamala 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface: Identity, Identification and Remnants of Culture .......................... 7 Map of Åland with Major Locations Mentioned in This Book ................. 16 Acknowledgements ................................................................................... 17 Introduction ........................................................................................... 19 Jan-Erik Tomtlund The Viking Age in Åland: An Introduction .............................................. 21 Part I: Interpreting Evidence of the Past ............................................... 37 Interpreting Evidence of the Past: An Introduction .................................. 39 Jenni Lucenius In Search of Identities: A Look at Interpretations of the Viking Age on the Åland Islands ............ 41 Joonas Ahola The Other Island: Kalevalaic Epic and History ........................................ 55 Per Olof Sjöstrand History Gone Wrong: Interpretations of the Transition from the Viking Age to the Medieval Period in Åland ........................................... 83 Part II: Between Sources and Their Lack ............................................. 153 Between Sources and Their Lack: An Introduction ................................. 155 5 Rudolf Gustavsson, Jan-Erik Tomtlund, Josefina Kennebjörk & Jan Storå Identities in Transition in Viking Age Åland? .......................................... 159 Teija Alenius Viking Age Landscapes and Livelihoods in the Åland Islands: A Review of the Pollen Evidence ............................................................. 187 Sirpa Aalto The Finnar in Old Norse Sources ........................................................... 199 Joonas Ahola, Frog & Johan Schalin Language(s) of Viking Age Åland: An Irresolvable Riddle? ..................... 227 Part III: Contexts, Contacts and Perceptions ....................................... 267 Contexts, Contacts and Perceptions: An Introduction ............................ 269 Johan Schalin with Frog Toponymy and Seafaring: Indications and Implications of Navigation along the Åland Islands .......................................................................... 273 Mikko Heikkilä The Changing Language Situation in the Åland Islands and Southwest Finland during the Late Iron Age ........................................... 303 Lassi Heininen, Jan Storå, Frog & Joonas Ahola Geopolitical Perspectives on Åland in the Viking Age ............................ 323 Frog From Mythology to Identity and Imaginal Experience: An Exploratory Approach to the Symbolic Matrix in Viking Age Åland .. 349 Indices .................................................................................................... 415 6 A PrEFACE TO ThE VIkINg AgE IN ÅLAND: IDENTITy, IDENTIFICATION AND rEmNANTS OF CuLTurE Joonas Ahola Frog university of helsinki Jenni lucenius Åland Board of Antiquities Åland has been a border area or a contact zone between Finnic and Scandinavian cultural and linguistic groups for at least two thousand years. This position has always had a significant impact on how the Ålanders have been seen – and still are seen – by themselves and by others. nevertheless, numerous cultural features also inevitably emerge that distinguish the Ålandic people from their eastern and western neighbors across the centuries. The chapters that comprise the present volume represent several different scientific disciplines and in many cases are results of collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts. They illustrate and discuss different factors that contribute to the historical identity of the Ålanders and show how multifaceted a concept such as ‘identity’ may be. This is especially the case when discussed in connection with the Viking Age, the period that belongs to a distant past. The other side of this process involves elaborating the understandings of Åland in the Viking Age from the perspective of different disciplines and advancing toward a synthesis of such perspectives. major challenges to understanding this fascinating period are, on the one hand, the limitations of the data through which it can be observed and understood, and on the other hand, the challenge of overcoming images that have been constructed of Viking Age Åland by earlier scholarship. even though focusing on the Viking Age in Åland, the chapters discuss the concept ‘identity’ as a research tool for scrutinizing the prehistoric era more generally. even with 7 their emphasis on ‘identity’, these chapters offer a dynamic and multifaceted arrangement of perspectives on Åland in the Viking Age. in order to interweave the multifaceted discussions in different chapters, authors have cross-referenced other chapters in the volume by placing the authors’ names in small capitals. A separate index for cross-references to different discussions is included at the back of the volume. Åland and the Viking Age Passage to Åland, and indeed the whole subsistence on the islands, has always required seafaring. The Viking Age (ca. Ad 800–1050) was a period in the past that is largely characterized by increased mobility and (partly consequent) settlement expansion outwards from Scandinavia. Quite emblematically, this mobility took place by means of seafaring. The increased mobility meant in- tensifying and expanding intercultural contacts not only between Scandinavians and other peoples but among peoples across the whole of northern europe – even if Scandinavians must be reputed with the most visible and significant activities in this respect. These intercultural contacts mostly took place in the form of trade and warfare. Trade and warfare were not wholly distinct activi- ties: trade voyages were conducted for profit, and if a location along the way possessed goods that were acquirable for a reasonable cost or even for free – as in the case of a village or farm with insufficient defenses – a trade voyage could easily turn into pillaging. The increased mobility of the Viking Age produced a new connectivity across northern europe (heininen et al.). The increase of mobility across the Baltic Sea can be assumed to have affected Ålandic culture because Åland is situated in a key position on the primary east–west sailing route for the northern Baltic Sea that connected Sweden and Finland (Schalin with Frog): this increased mobility meant an increase in sea traffic in Ålandic waters. Viking Age Åland nevertheless presents strong local features that distinguish it from its eastern and western neighbors. The archaeological record suggests that the roles and activities of Ålanders in this period were in several respects different from those of peoples in the adjacent areas of both Finland and Sweden. This makes Viking Age Åland both very interesting and very important to discuss. Address of this topic has more often than not been entangled with the contemporary politics of the scholars doing research. The consequence has been that the images of Viking Age Åland that scholars construct have in fact been constructions of heritage, whether as a retroactive cultural appropriation of 8
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