Wild plant gathering in Stone Age Finland

Abstract

In this paper, a systematic review of archaeobotanical data from Stone Age (c. 8900e1500 cal BC) sites in mainland Finland is presented for the first time and compared with ethnographical data. The data was collected from 76 archaeological sites and consists of charred and waterlogged remains from soil samples and charred hand-picked remains from archaeological excavations. The data shows that various wild plants were gathered in Finland during the Stone Age and that different opportunities for plant gathering prevailed in various parts of the country. Hazel and water chestnut were widespread and used in locales further to the north than where they grow today, but they were still confined to southern Finland. Some plants, such as bearberry and crowberry, were ubiquitous and collected throughout Finland. In the light of the data analysed, it is suggested that most of the charred plant remains derive from food processing (roasting, smoking, frying, cooking), waste management, and fuel use.

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa L.): Not Only a Weed but a Promising Vegetable and Medicinal Plant

“…Wild plants have been harvested in European settlements at least from the Neolithic and Mesolithic periods. Sorrel seeds and charred plant parts indicating food processing have been found in settlement sites throughout Europe (Andersen 1990; Kotzamani and Livarda 2018;Kubiak-Martens 1999;Vanhanen and Pesonen 2016). Wild plants have traditionally been gathered mainly by women and children in many rural areas throughout the world, usually casually and sometimes more systematically.…”

Neolithic land use in the northern Boreal zone: high-resolution multiproxy analyses from Lake Huhdasjärvi, south-eastern Finland

“…Osteological data (Ukkonen 1996;Mökkönen 2001;Nurminen 2007;Seitsonen et al 2017), fishing structures (Koivisto and Nurminen 2015) and lipid analysis (Cramp et al 2014), all beyond the 60th parallel north, suggest that the subsistence base was aquatically oriented in the economy of Neolithic populations. Various nuts, fruits, roots and seeds, such as hazel, water chestnut, dropwort and wild strawberry were gathered in Finland during the Stone Age (Vanhanen and Pesonen 2015). Evidently, the period from the introduction of cultivation to the point where it actually acted as a key factor in subsistence in north-eastern European boreal forests was a long-term process that took several thousands of years.…”

“…2160 bc from Lake Huhdasjärvi. Further, the earliest macrofossil evidence for cultivation (Vuorela and Lempiäinen 1988;see also;Vanhanen and Pesonen 2015), biomarker lipids and δ 13 values have revealed the presence of milk in pottery around 2500 bc (Cramp et al 2014). Also, the earliest bone of sheep/goat recovered from a dwelling site of the Kiukainen Culture (ca.…”

The environment they lived in: anthropogenic changes in local and regional vegetation composition in eastern Fennoscandia during the Neolithic

“…Reconstruction of regional fire activity (tCHAR Z-scores) based on the "composite charcoal curve" from all lakes available in southeast Finland (see Kuosmanen et al (2018) for details). Reconstruction of local fire activity (tCHAR Z-scores) based on "microscopic charcoal concentrations" from Huhdasjärvi A and C favour the growth of edible plants such as raspberry, juniper (Juniperus), hazel (Corylus) and wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) (Vanhanen and Pesonen 2015). All these species have a competitive advantage in early successional communities but decline in abundance during later successional stages (Smith 2001).…”