Table Of ContentThe 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
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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
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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
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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
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