In the Age of Vikings – Halla’s Story

In the Viking Age (approximately 800–1000 C.E.), at the end of the Iron Age, most of the Satakunta population was centered along the upstream of river Kokemäenjoki in the present-day areas of Kokemäki and Huittinen as well as around lakes Pyhäjärvi and Köyliönjärvi. The coastal areas were populated as the Iron Age began, but then became abandoned, with no signs of permanent settlement before the early Middle Ages. The numerous burial grounds of the Eura and Köyliö region tell us that the area grew into a significant settlement from the 6th century onwards.

Inhumation burial became customary around lake Pyhäjärvi as early as halfway through the Iron Age. At the time, in other parts of Finland the deceased were cremated, and inhumation burial only became the norm later, as Christianity spread to the area. We do not know why the burial customs of the Eura and Köyliö region were divergent. As a result of the research on inhumation graves our knowledge on the Iron Age people’s lives has diversified, as remnants of textiles and other objects made of organic materials have been preserved in the graves.

Archaeology often studies the lives of past people through their death. When grave findings are interpreted it is important to keep in mind that there may have been multiple rules guiding the way a deceased person was equipped for the grave. The clothes, jewelry, weapons and tools may have carried meanings we no longer can fathom. On the other hand, not all findings have been preserved: wood, bone, bark, horn, fur and many textiles have disappeared without a trace.

The Luistari cemetery in Kauttua, Eura is the vastest burial site investigated in Finland. The excavation in Luistari began when an excavator bucket accidentally hit a Viking Age sword in the spring of 1969. The Luistari fieldwork was led by archaeologist Pirkko-Liisa Lehtosalo-Hilander in four consecutive decades. Altogether 1300 inhumation graves have been surveyed in the area, with a time span reaching from the Middle Iron Age to the Early Middle Ages. In addition, there is a Bronze Age dwelling site and cairns in Luistari.

Luistari is still one of the focal points of the Finnish archaeological research, as various textile and bone material preserved in the inhumation burials have enabled diverse scientific analyses, such as research on ancient DNA and isotopes.

The Köyliönsaari Island in Lake Köyliönjärvi in present day Säkylä is central to Finnish history because of the tradition of Saint Henry. Many Iron Age inhumation cemeteries have been found in Köyliönsaari, and according to folklore it was the site of chieftain Lalli’s estate. As Christianity spread, the Church took ownership of the estate, which served as a bishop’s estate in the Middle Ages and later as a royal estate.

The cemeteries, located on present day Vanhakartano fields and grounds, were surveyed in the 1920s and 1930s. They were mostly run by archaeologist Nils Cleve. It is possible that in the estate lands there are still graves and Iron Age dwelling sites left unsurveyed.

People’s everyday life has remained quite the same across millennia. The living conditions and settings have been the defining factors on how dwelling, working, cooking and family life turn out.

In the Iron Age dwelling sites the houses were mainly made of wood. The people lived in the so-called longhouses and in smaller smoke huts. Warmth came from open stoves or stone-heap ovens, light from wood shingles and seal-grease lamps.

There were many animals on the grounds, both pets and utility animals: dogs, horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and hens. Food was also obtained by hunting, fishing and gathering. Small fields were used to farm barley, wheat and rye, and peas and broad beans were grown in the garden.

Everyday items were made of iron, stone, wood, bone and clay. Clothes were made of linen, wool, leather and fur.

Doing the everyday chores took a lot of time, but life was not all work: there was surely – at least once in a while – time to get cosy together, celebrate and perform rituals.

There is evidence of a few different late Iron Age house types. The longhouse was the most common type of house in Scandinavia, and remains of such buildings have also been found in Finland. The house was long and narrow. The roof, held up by a row of poles in the middle of the inner space, would descend close to the floor on the sides. The open stove provided warmth and light and was used for cooking. The house had areas for people and for animals.

Another type of house was a smoke cabin made of logs. In the corner of the hut there was a stone-heap oven that provided warmth but also smoke. It could not be used for cooking nor lighting. Cooking took place outside or in a separate cooking hut. The log hut could be constructed without a stone foundation. It was common for houses to have a dirt floor.

During the Iron Age people farmed, raised cattle, fished, hunted and gathered food. The animals provided nourishment, material for objects, fertiliser and power for pulling and bearing. The farm animals – cows, horses, goats, sheep, pigs and hens – were small, low yielding and looked different from their present-day relatives. The dog had been around since the Stone Age.

Barley, rye and wheat were grown, along with some oats. Peas, beans and turnips were known. Hops were used for brewing ale. Nature offered plenty of ingredients like berries, nuts, eggs and tuber vegetables.

There were many ways to cook and preserve food. Salt was rare, so fermenting, drying, smoking and freezing were common methods of preservation.

Wool, linen, nettle and hemp were broken, carded and spun into yarn. Yarns were dyed with natural dyes and knitted and woven into fabric and bands. Fabrics, bands and furs were then used to make all kinds of garments, from headpieces to shoes.

The women’s outfit consisted of an underdress, an overdress which was fastened on the shoulders, an apron and a cloak. Men had a shirt, trousers, gaiters and a cloak or a coat. The clothes were fastened with various kinds of brooches and pins. The edges of cloaks and aprons could be decorated with bronze spirals. On the waist there was a belt made of leather or tablet woven band, on which one could hang a knife, other utensils and storage pouches.

Clothes and equipment were used to express the wearer’s social status, personality and perhaps also their place of origin.

We often interpret the roles of men and women from our modern viewpoint. In the Iron Age the tasks and skills were intertwined, and a versatile set of skills was an advantage, regardless of the gender. Undoubtedly there were people known for their special skills or professions.

The everyday items from the Iron Age vary a great deal: this is due to how the items were used in many different tasks, but also to how the items were made. Many farming tools, like sickles and scythes, were made of iron, needles and spoons out of bone and horn, and pots and plates out of wood, clay and metals.

Some of the items were very simple while others were skillfully decorated. People have always been fascinated by aesthetics and design.

The first urban communities in Northern Europe came about in the late Merovingian period. The towns were primarily found as hubs for faraway trade. The closest towns to Finland were Birka on the Mälaren island in Sweden, Ribe in Denmark and Staraya Ladoga south of Lake Ladoga. The development of the towns was connected with the establishment of the Vikings’ Eastern trade route: it was possible to travel from the Gulf of Finland along a system of river routes all the way to the Volga, which opened connections to Central Asia and Middle East.

The Vikings’ eastward journeys were not raids but trading expeditions. There is little evidence of Finns participating on the expeditions to east, but instead there is proof of Birka having been a common destination. However, it is likely that some have been to faraway places. People and goods moved along the trade routes, as did ideas and concepts.

The active northbound trade was based on fur. It was a luxury product highly sought after in the wealthy Islamic world. The fur trade was very organised already during the Viking Age. The trading posts were not only found on the coasts, but inland dispatch stations grew in places where local people would trade their products for the weapons, salt and other faraway treasures the merchants had on offer. Silver was also used for payment, according to many scales and weight finds.

Isotope research can be used to find out about the mobility and living environments of people and animals. When analysing the dead at Luistari it was found that some of the people buried in the cemetery had lived elsewhere in their childhood. Although most of the population was local, there were individuals with bone isotope values indicating connections to areas further away within Finland or around the Baltic Sea.

Genetic research also implies a high mobility of Iron Age people around the Baltic Sea. The Finns of the Viking Age have travelled widely. Finland was not a remote or isolated corner of the world but a part of an economical and social network, allowing travel from one area to another.

The wealth of the late Iron Age Eura and Köyliö area was based on lively trade connections. The communities were at their peak during the Viking Age, and the amounts of traded goods were on the rise, which can be seen in the growing import of valuable copper alloys. In the Viking Age jewellery the metals were used much more than before, even lavishly, and the dead were buried with more and more goods.

According to Luistari findings, trade was not a masculine exclusive right, because in a woman’s grave there was a set of scales and weights used for weighing silver and a purse with coins in it.

What commercial goods besides fur could the Pyhäjärvi area offer to those used to exotic Eastern specialities? No doubt was there demand for other products from the wilderness, as bone and antlers were used as material for combs, spoons and other small items. The teeth and claws of predators have in all likelihood been in demand, and live birds of prey may have been sold to be trained as hunting hawks. Dried fish may also have been a trade item. In Luistari fish was an important source of nutrition, as the new stable isotope analyses confirm. Nonetheless, there is no evidence of faraway fish trade in the Viking Age.

It is likely that there has been slave trade within the area of present-day Finland, but we do not know what kind of significance it had. Were Finns a trade commodity themselves, or did they obtain or mediate slaves to others?

The Iron Age beliefs were related to nature. All natural beings, perhaps even some objects, had a spirit, and there were multiple deities. Religion must have been quite flexible, and new beliefs and deities were readily adopted. Simultaneously new rituals were brought alongside the old. New beliefs spread along the trade routes just like goods did.

Animals were associated with beliefs and characteristics, like strength, courage or guile. Animal-themed ornaments may have been believed to have had the characteristics of the animal, and maybe the bearer of the ornament caught some of them. The objects buried with the dead show that it was believed that they would be used in the otherworld.

Weapons, especially swords, were laden with mysticism and beliefs. Very often the weapons had been destroyed before burying so they would follow the dead to the otherworld, or so that the dead would not be able to use the weapons against the living. The weapons may thus also have had a spirit and will of their own, which had to be managed even after death.

The burial methods tell us about the beliefs on death and the otherworld. The transition from cremation to inhumation signifies a change in how the dead were believed to move on to the otherworld, and perhaps also on the perception of how the otherworld was perceived.

A thousand years ago, just as today, death and the rituals connected to it ultimately tell us about the mindset and beliefs of the living. The ancient rituals related to burials may be difficult for us to understand. Not all of the dead were buried in the same way, not even in the same cemetery.

Although cremation was the most common method of burial in the rest of Finland until the end of the first millennium, inhumation began in the Eura and Köyliö area already in the 6th and 7th centuries. Inhumation is usually connected to Christian rituals, but at that time Christianity had not yet been adopted in the Eura-Köyliö area. Perhaps the people had blended Christian features imported from Europe with their old customs and rituals.

Burials in inhumation cemeteries most likely included various rituals and customs and not in a random fashion. Certain orientations were followed when burying the dead, and it was common to give jewellery and other items in the grave with the dead. Apparently it was thought that the items were needed in the otherworld. There were also a lot of itemless burials: for example most of the Luistari graves only had traces of the corpses.

The burial customs of the Iron Age were not convergent even in the same cemetery, and sometimes there are cremations along inhumation graves. In cremation graves the burned bones and goods of the dead have been placed in a pit dug in the ground, or in a cairn or a stone setting on the ground.

We do not know the reason for cremations in inhumation cemeteries: perhaps it was because of the status of the dead person, or because people were afraid of them, or a rebellion against the prevailing beliefs? Cremation is associated with a certain notion of the spirit or soul of the dead leaving the body with fire. Without fire the soul of the dead may have stayed longer with the living. It could be that the notion of the otherworld was different with inhumation and cremation customs.

Conquests, military campaigns and richly equipped weapon graves have stirred up an impression of vikings as a warrior people. But who was a Viking warrior, and how can we detect that from the materials that have survived until today? Were there Viking warriors among the people who lived in the area that is now called Finland?

It is very difficult for us to know how a warrior was defined back then, and what kind of signs it would have left behind. Some written sources of great battles have survived. In addition there are traces of use in the weapons found in the graves. The deceased themselves, however, have few traces of warriorship, injuries or signs of heavy training.

Hence not all people buried with a sword were warriors. Most people earned their living by farming, hunting, fishing, crafting, trading or another less violent way.

In the Viking Age the spear was a more common weapon than the sword. Swords, especially those carefully manufactured for battle purposes, were expensive and difficult to replace or repair – unlike spears. The armament may have also included a battle axe, or sometimes a seax. A shield was most commonly used for protection. Various chainmails and leather helmets have also been in use.

The sword was one of the most handsome objects of the Viking Age. Surprisingly many have been found in Finland. A sword is meant for one-on-one battle, and traces show that they have indeed been used in battle. However, not all of the swords found were fit for battle. Some were made of low-quality materials and were poorly balanced. This indicates that swords also carried other than practical value for their owners.

The best swords were close-combat weapons, well manufactured and balanced, and often very beautiful. They were not made by a local blacksmith but by a specialised professional. Even in Finland there are findings of so-called ULFBERHT and INGELRII swords, where these texts or variations of them are engraved on the blade. These swords are thought to have their origins in certain Central European sword workshops. The letters on the sword were a sign of quality even for the Nordic people who couldn’t read them. The blades may also have different geometrical patterns on them. The patterns may have been believed to have magical features or powers.

There was mysticism and beliefs associated with swords and sword makers: the swords may have been believed to come from another world, or it was thought they were made by giants or dwarves. The swords were given names, and they may have had human characteristics or their own personality. Some swords were kind of status symbols, never used in real battles.

Even in the Viking Age most people had other things to focus on than fighting. A blacksmith was one of the most respected and most specialised professions of the Viking Age communities. Blacksmiths may have been associated with divine characteristics, as fireworking skills and manufacturing a complicated object may have been seen as wondrous and mystical to other villagers.

The blacksmith was also a necessity in the community, because many everyday utensils required metal parts. Not all blacksmiths were able to make spectacular swords, as that work required a specialised artisan with excellent skill. The profession of a blacksmith was likely to be hereditary, and the family of a blacksmith seemed to have a better standing within the community. There may have been a specific material symbol for being a blacksmith or a part of a blacksmith’s family: a forged Iron Age brooch type is associated with blacksmiths.

Hankkasmäki is a wooded hill surrounded by fields on the east side of the river Eurajoki, opposite the Vaanii estate. In March 2024 metal detector enthusiasts found two Viking Age convex round brooches and a bronze bead there.

In the investigation by Satakunta Museum, one more convex round brooch was found in the area. It was retrieved along the soil that was attached to it. The brooch and the soil were taken to a microparticle analysis, with the objective of detecting textile fibres that might have been preserved in connection to the brooch. The analysis was made by Tuija Kirkinen, Ph.D.

In the analysis, the soil attached to the brooch was examined with a transmission light microscope, detecting plant and wool fibres from textiles and predator hair, that is likely from fur. The samples also included parts of feathers, of which at least one was from a bird of prey.

The area has since been a site for archaeological excavation. Based on the excavation, Hankkasmäki is the northernmost known Iron Age cemetery in Eura. The investigation shows that the dead were cremated on a pyre before burial, after which the pyre remains and burial goods were spread in the cemetery. The findings in the area included bones, various brooches, bone items, bronze and glass beads, a fire steel and a spearhead.

Metal detection has become an established hobby in Satakunta. From 2019 to 2024 there were altogether 1,334 notifications of stray finds, most by metal detector enthusiasts. The notifications included information on 11,668 individual items or fragments of an item. Most of the finds are dated in the later historical period, but there are also many Iron Age and Medieval items.

Thanks to this hobby the image of Satakunta history becomes more precise. The findings help locate dwelling sites, routes and centres of activity that were formerly unknown. Locating new items will enable their protection and further research. If there is planned land development in the area, the find sites can be taken into account and investigated archaeologically.

The abundance of findings is not free of challenges: there are not enough resources for the conservation and study of the items, which may lead to loss of precious data. For instance, the textile fibers preserved with Iron Age brooches could provide information on the attires of the period, but without careful handling this data will be lost.

Plant microfossil and pollen analyses focus on the remains of plants preserved in graves and dwelling sites, of which some can only be detected with a microscope. The plant parts, seeds and pollen found in soil samples tell us about the plants people have used and about the landscape that surrounded them.

Stable isotope analysis is a dietary analysis based on teeth and bones. Drinking water and food bring atoms of chemical elements in a human body. Examining the proportions and amounts of the atoms will tell us if the individual’s diet consisted of plants, fish from the sea or lakes, meat or other products of animal origin.

Lipid analysis is used to study for example the lipids absorbed in pots and pans. The method has been used in the research of Stone Age diet and vessel use. It has shown that milk was used as part of people’s diet in Finland already in the Stone Age.

Protein analysis defines the proteins preserved in calculus, metal vessels or eating utensils. They provide precise information on which animal species have been utilised. Proteins in calculus give evidence on which animal’s milk the individual has drunk or which species of fish they have eaten.

Radiocarbon dating is a method which defines the age of an organic substance by measuring the amount of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope that has accumulated during and decayed after the lifetime of the substance. The samples to be dated can include bone, nutshells or a coal from a fire pit.

Osteological analysis is a method which examines the bones of a human or an animal. The structure, wear and possible injuries of bones provide information on the age, sex, health, nutrition and way of life of the individual as well as the communities and environments of the past.

Microparticle analysis looks at the textile and fur fibres found in soil and on the surfaces of finds. The scale structures of small hairs detected by a microscope can often reveal the animal species.

Ancient DNA research reveals the genome of the people, animals and plants of the past. It is used to resolve kinships, migration and changes in habitats.