Animal bones in old graves: a zooarchaeological and contextual study on faunal remains and new dated evidence for the ritual re-use of old cemetery sites in Southern and Western Finland

Abstract

Animal remains from twelve Iron Age (ca. 500 BC–1200/1300AD) sites from Southern and Western Finland, showing a mixture of finds and features typical of both settlement sites and cemeteries, were investigated using a zooarchaeological, taphonomic and contextual approach. Rarefaction analysis of the species richness and anatomical distribution indicates that the samples included both general domestic waste type and species and element-selective deposits of cattle and horse skulls, mandibles and limb bones. According to radiocarbon dating results, there seems to be a gap between the dates of burials and those of other ritual activities, indicating that the context of such deposits is a disused cemetery. The faunal deposits could represent remembrance rituals or relate to votive offerings intended to ensure healthy or productive livestock, a practice described in later ethnographic sources. These deposits seem to be in use within a large geographical area over a long period, and some aspects of this belief system may even have survived into the Christianisation of society in the historical period.

Cemetery Considerations

“…The dated unburned mandibular tooth of a sheep or goat in an animal bone deposit was recovered from the mound connecting the two earlier cairns. In this find context, the presence of material younger than the burial activity is perhaps not surprising (see also Bläuer 2020). However, the dated burnt pig tarsal bone (T4) was found in a concentration of animal bones outside the stone construction excavated in 1986, near burnt human bones of a different age.…”

“…The discrepancy between the dates of burials and those of other ritual activities were underlined in a study of animal remains from twelve Iron Age cemeteries from southern and western Finland. Unburned animal bones could have been ritually deposited in former (or then-unused) cemeteries in connection with remembrance rituals or with the intention of securing the health and productivity of livestock (Bläuer 2020). One idea is that these sites may have contained a certain power -'kalma' -due to the human remains (Bläuer 2020: 12).…”