11 January 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Archaeologists have found a mysterious prehistoric site, believed to be a 6,500-year-old Stone Age cemetery, near the Arctic Circle

Archaeologists have found a mysterious prehistoric site believed to be a 6,500-year-old Stone Age cemetery just 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle.

The prehistoric site is known as Tainiaro, located about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle in the Finnish region of Lapland. Although the hypothesis that the Tainiaro site is a Stone Age cemetery remains unproven, if confirmed, it could drastically alter ideas about the history of Northern Europe. Furthermore, the proof would make Tainiaro the northernmost Stone Age graveyard in the world.

Back in 1959, local workers came across stone tools in Simo, which is situated near the Baltic Sea’s northern edge, just 80 kilometers to the south of the Arctic Circle. The site, named Tainiaro, underwent partial excavations in the 80s. This led to the revelation of thousands of artifacts, including pottery, stone tools, and animal bones.

The archaeologists were also able to notice 127 possible pits of different sizes that could have been sediment-filled. Some had burning evidence, while others had red ochre traces. Red ochre is a natural iron pigment that is crucial to several burials of the Stone Age. However, without skeletal evidence, which quickly decayed in the acidic soil of this region, the Taniaro’s identification as a cemetery was never confirmed.

The team of archaeologists working on the site has published its findings and theories in the Cambridge University Press archaeological journal Antiquity in the paper entitled “A large fifth-millennium BC cemetery in the subarctic north of the Baltic Sea.”

The prehistoric site is thought to be a Stone Age cemetery. Image: Antiquity
The prehistoric site is thought to be a Stone Age cemetery. Image: Antiquity

Archaeologists were initially unsure whether the pits were graves, hearths, or a combination of the two. To determine the nature, the team examined the contents and sizes of the pits and compared them to hundreds of Stone Age graves in 14 cemeteries. The archaeologists were then able to determine that at least 44 of these could have housed human burials. Furthermore, the pits’ rounded-edge rectangular shape, red ochre traces, and occasional artifacts suggest that they were graves.

The authors note in the study that Tainiaro should be considered a cemetery despite no skeletal material surviving in the area was found.

Their research paper mentions, “Despite the absence of skeletal evidence, dozens of fifth-millennium BC pits have been tentatively interpreted as burials… Many of the pits are consistent in form with those used for inhumation at contemporaneous sites suggesting that Tainiaro is one of the largest Stone Age cemeteries in northern Europe and raising questions about the cultural and subsistence practices of prehistoric societies in the subarctic.”

While elsewhere it would have been possible to find human remains in these pits, which would have confirmed the Stone Age cemetery hypothesis, the soil in Finland is so acidic that nothing organic buried in the ground could survive for more than a thousand years.

The pits discovered in previous excavation. Image: Antiquity
The pits discovered in previous excavation. Image: Antiquity

” We’re talking more than six millennia here. So the outlines of pits and their inner traces are all that local archaeologists have to go by. But there was not even a map of the place,” Aki Hakonen, an archaeologist with the University of Oulu in Finland and one of the authors of the paper, said in a statement to Newsweek.

Archaeologist Aki Hakonen, who led the team, explains that based on the burial pit shapes at other areas, the dead in Tainiaro could have been buried on their sides or backs, with bent knees. He notes that furs could have been present and that the dead could have been wrapped in the skins of seals. Hakonen also notes that red ochre and grave goods may have been mixed into the fill dirt or the grave.

Excavations have only been done on one-fifth of Tainiaro. This means that the number of graves could actually be more than 200.

Antiquity

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.160

Related Articles

A rare Ogham inscription found on Pictish stone in Scottish Kirkyard

8 November 2022

8 November 2022

A Pictish carved stone cross slab with a rare inscription in the early medieval ogham language has been discovered in...

An artificial intelligence “Ithaca” that will improve our understanding of ancient history

11 March 2022

11 March 2022

A deep neural network trained to restore ancient Greek texts can do so with 72% accuracy when used by historians,...

Archaeologists identify three new Roman camps in Arabia

27 April 2023

27 April 2023

Through remote sensing analysis, archaeologists have identified three new Roman fortified camps throughout northern Arabia. Their study, released today in...

In western Turkey, inscriptions and 2,500-year-old sculptures were found

11 July 2021

11 July 2021

Two 2,500-year-old marble statues and an inscription have been found during excavations at the ancient city of Euromos, in Turkey’s...

The Mountain of Shemharus, King of the Ginn: Toubkal

14 August 2022

14 August 2022

Towering over the Atlas Mountains, Mount Toubkal is the highest peak in Morocco. Toubkal, the highest mountain in all of...

Remains of a Roman stylobate found in Montenegro

19 July 2023

19 July 2023

In ancient Rhizon (Risan) in Montenegro, remains of a Roman stylobate (a shared base for multiple columns) were uncovered. In...

Scientists have developed a new tool that enables them to identify prehistoric and historic individuals’ relatives up to the sixth-degree

24 December 2023

24 December 2023

A new method of genetic analysis makes it possible to determine family relationships of prehistoric and historical individuals up to...

‘Exceptional’ Viking Age silver treasure found in Norway

27 October 2022

27 October 2022

A treasure trove of silver fragments from the Viking Age has been discovered in Stjørdal, near Trondheim in central Norway....

Homo Bodoensis may be the ancestor of modern humans

28 October 2021

28 October 2021

Although modern humans are the only surviving human lineages, their kinship with other human species that roamed the world is...

Vase for holy oil used by ‘hidden Christians’ in Japan

24 May 2023

24 May 2023

After the family that had passed it down through the generations permitted the artifact to be examined, a relic from...

Italian Versailles being returned to its former glory through

17 May 2023

17 May 2023

The Italian Royal Palace of Caserta, a long-neglected near Naples, is being restored to its former glory through a vast...

Climate has influenced the growth of our bodies and our brain

8 July 2021

8 July 2021

Over 300 fossils from the genus Homo have been measured for body and brain size by an interdisciplinary team of...

A unique bone Scythian scepter from the 5th century BC was discovered in Northeast Bulgaria

1 October 2023

1 October 2023

A unique bone scepter belonging to a Scythian warlord from the 5th century BC was discovered during excavations in the...

Unexpected Origins of Mysterious Mummies Buried in Boats in a Chinese Desert

17 February 2024

17 February 2024

In 1990, hundreds of mummified bodies were found buried in boats in an inhospitable desert area in the Xinjiang Uyghur...

Researchers able to reconstruct the development of Barbegal’s former watermills over time with the help of carbonate deposits

7 July 2024

7 July 2024

Archaeologists are faced with a difficult task: how can information be obtained about buildings or facilities of which – if...