Early Copper Finds in Northern Fennoscandia

A rough casting for a vcry early copper adze, tound not long ago in the interior of Upper Norrland has been shown by analysis to be ol' very pure copper 99.4%. The author has used the occasion to study the early use of copper in northern Fennoscandia. The earliest evidence is from ca. 3900 B.C., and in this case there were indications that metal was actually bcing melted. The copper studied was all of' eastern/south-eastern origin; copper began reaching Upper Norrland via south Scandinavia only much later. The author surveys some ol' the main features in the dcvelopment of metalworking in the forest region between the Urals and Karelia and also lurther south. In this vast area are found the preconditions for the production of copper objects in northern Fennoscandia. The material is viewed against the background of an earlier study by the author of the import of north Russian Carboniferous flint into Upper Norrland between the Middle Neolithic and the Epineolithic.

and its pottery contained elements regarded as clearly related to Swedish and Finnish battleaxe ceramics (Meinander 1957;Kivikoski 1964).
As our subject is going to be metal import from the east to northern Fennoscandia, including Upper Norrland, we may begin by pointing out that until the early 1980's it was thought that metal was not imported from the east until the Seima stage, which is placed by calibrated radiocarbon dating somewhere between the 16th/15th and the 14th centuries B.C. (Chernykh 1992:194).
Imports increased during the Ananino stage. However recent discoveries have shown that the import of copper from the east began much earlier. Attention will here be given to five discoveriestwo in eastern Finland, one in northern Norway, and two in Upper Norrland in Sweden (fig. I).
A ring of pure copper (fig. 2: I) was found during the excavation of a settlement on the edge of a peat bog on the western slope of the Suovaara headland in Polvijärvi in northern Karelia. Together with the ring were found typical Comb Ware with asbestos tempering and thin-walled asbestos ware. The discovery was made in 1960, when it was still too early to understand the age and meaning of the copper object correctly. J.-P. Taavitsainen dated the object to the typical Comb Ware period, more precisely at ca. 3000 B.C. (1982), which would be the equivalent of ca. 3800 B.C. on a calibrated chronology. I and 2 photographs from Museiverket, Helsinki, 3 from Tromst& museum, and 4 after Halén (7994).
This object was not shaped by ca»ting, but is forged from a flat piece of metal whose sides have been folded in toward» the middle. The object has a shape like a stone implement.
Its dating is unsure. The other material from the site extends from preceramic times down at least to the Bronze Age. Matti Huurre places the adze in the 3rd millennium B.C. (1982,1986) (Schanche 1986(Schanche , 1989(Schanche , 1994 ).The Karlebotn publication also refers to a flat piece of hammered copper, which wa» found together with textile-marked pottery and imitation textile-marked pottery, and»crapers of quartz and quartzite at Storbukt on Mager-Qya (Gjessing 1935(Gjessing , 1942. The publication also mentions a hammered copper arrowhead among the finds from a house at Ledesby in Finnmark. The find» from the same stratum included asbesto» ware, slate points, and flat-flaked points (Gjessing 1930). It may be added that copper arrowheads occur on the Kola peninsula in the late Neolithic and early metal ages (Gurina 1987;43). There are two early north Swedish occurrences of copper. One occurrence is dated by context. It was a small piece of sheet metal and a badly corroded cylindrical bead of doubled and then rolled up»heeting (fig. 2:4), which were both found in a small excavation of a group of rectangular pit dwel-lings with accompanying graves at Lillberget in Överkalix parish, Norrbotten in 1990. The other finds consisted largely of typical Comb Ware in style II:1 and of flint of eastern origin. The site lay by a beach deposit. The finds, the level of the beach, and the calibrated 14C dates, all show that the site was inhabited in ca. 3900 B.C. A small piece of copper-bearing sandstone (0.6%%uo) and artifacts interpreted as a stone anvil and parts of a crucible, are claimed to show that copper was smelted and processed at the site. The copper-bearing sandstone is explained as probably derived from the Volga-Ural region (Halén 1994:160).The present author finds it hard to under»tand why a raw material like this should be transported so far when there was the alternative possibility of acquiring smelted copper or finished artifacts. Is what was found at Lillberget really copper-bearing sandstone? The question deserves further investigation. However the arguments in the following pages will be based entirely on Ove Halén's publication.
In the other case from Norrland, an axelike object of copper from Vilhelmina parish in the interior of Västerbotten ( fig. 3), the find circumstances are less informative. It was found by the author in a recent arrangement of stones at a deserted weekend hut on Lake Varris. The stones were mostly worked pieces of quartzite exactly like those found at the many prehistoric sites around the lake. The copper object and the pieces of quartzite must all have been brought from one or more of these sites. Someone had examined the object more closely by scraping it with a metal point. Varris and the adjacent lakes, Stensjön, Insjön, Maksjön and Malgomaj were made in the late 50's into a hydraulic reserve for hydro-electrical production. In anticipation of this the Riksantikvarieämbetet carried out a survey and what were for the time extensive excavations in the affected area. Later, water level fluctuations resulted in shore erosion. Archaeological material on an unexpectedly large scale, and partly with a new content, began to be exposed and progressively destroyed. To record what was happening, and to obtain further information Västerbotten Museum set up a several years' project under the direction of the author, the purpose of which was recording and excavation. The project was called "Archaeological Investigations into Artificially Regulated Lakes and Rivers in Västerbotten's Län" (Huggert 1979). Similar results were met in some other regulated arease.g. in Suomussalmi in Finland (Huurre 1982).
Of the recorded and sometimes excavated sites around Varris Lake, one is of particular interest for the above copper find. It was a shore settlement close to the hut where the object was found (no. 657 in Riksantikvarieämbetet's water regulation list, and Vilhelmina parish no. 234 in the National Register). This site was first found and was excavated by the Riksantikvarieämbetet be- fore waterlevel regulation (Hvarfner 1959 two-piece moulds of very simple type suitable for making flat axes or adzes with rectangular, hexagonal, or pointed oval section. One of these actually came from Kukkosaari ( fig. 5). The moulds were made of soapstone or similar material, and are thought to have been made locally (Huurre 1982:23f.). The copper of the adze from Kukkosaari is purer than that of the Varris casting. The other elements only make up 0.3% of the total: 0.05-0.07% silver, 0.005% iron, 0.012% nickel, &0.01% zinc, 0.009% lead, &0.001% bismuth, &0.01% antimony, &0.07% arsenic, &0.2% phosphorous, &0.003% tin, &0.002% aluminium, 0.003%manganese, 0.005% silica, and &0.003% magnesium. It has been characterized as being of pure copper with natural impurities (Huurre 1982:20). We may observe the similarity of composition to that of the adze from Varris. Attention may be called to the slightly raised level of silver (0. 05-0.07%) in the Kukkosaari object, while the elements with slightly raised values at Varris were arsenic and lead.
The ring from Suovaara was found on analysis to be of copper, but with a lower degree of purity. In addition to copper there was 0.055 7a cobalt, 0.055% zinc, 2.80% arsenic, 0.35% silver, 1.10% tungsten, and 0.00018% gold. The metal is thought to be made from oxide from the weathered surface of sulphide ore (Taavitsainen 1982:47 From the above it emerges that the bead from Lillberget was the oldest of the analysed objects from north Fennoscandia dealt with here. Probably the ring from Suovaari is the next oldest, and the adze casting from Varris the youngest. It can be seen that the two oldest objects have a somewhat lower copper content than the two younger ones, whose level of copper is over 99%. It may also be observed that the number of elements (impurities) is smaller in the older than the younger objects. Furthermore the individual impurity values are higher in the older material (max. 2.8%)than in the younger (&=0.5%). The highest content is that of arsenic. However there is no appreciable arsenic in the adze from Kukkosaari. There seems thus to be a pattern in the material dealt with from Upper Norrland and eastern Finland. The material, however, is so small that it hardly justifies definite conclusions, but there is still scope for a hypothesis: the earliest copper objects had a composition like the raw material of which they were made. If they were shaped only by the mechanical working of natural native copper, the agreement would naturally be complete. When casting was introduced and became widespread older scrap objects became increasingly present in new metal. This applied particularly in areas peripheral to the primary raw materials. When copper from different sources and with different elemental composition was melted together, the resulting metal would contain the total elements of both, which would be averaged out in proportion to the amounts of the different metals present in the end-product. At the same time it can be supposed that metallurgical knowledge was sufficient to enable the processes to be manipulated to give a very pure copper (&99%),meaning that the proportion of the other elements, the impurities, had been reduced. This made it possible to produce something else than random alloys. Birgitta Hulthén has had analysed two metal droplets from a crucible found at the site of Rå-inget I, facing Nämforsen on the Ångermanälven river. According to Hulthén the results show that one droplet was copper and the other bronze "indicating that bronze alloy was produced locally and not just remelted" (1991:25). The published table shows however that there was tin in both droplets, so both seem to be bronze, though of somewhat different compositions.
When the adze casting from Varris was poured it was for technological reasons an advantage that the metal should contain arsenic. The melted metal would then run more easily into the hollow of the mould, and moreover the mechanical properties of the object were improved. On the other hand the poisonous arsenical gases liberated in melting were directly dangerous to health (Oldeberg 1942(Oldeberg :149, 1943(Oldeberg :135,1976.Bearing in mind that a small quantity of lead was also present in the casting, we may mention that also lead makes liquid metal flow more easily. Increasing amounts of lead increased the softness and flexibility of the casting (Oldeberg 1976 These were obviously produced amid the daily activities of normal settlements. All the objects were made of chemically extremely pure copper, fully comparable with the metal in the copper-bearing sandstone found in hundreds of outcrops in the Volga-Kama region and the western Urals.
Chernykh's opinion is that the metalworking of the Volosovo culture was the result of external influences. The same is true of the Garin-Bor culture of the Kama/Vyatka area, close west of the Urals. The copper artifacts from its sites recall those of the Volosovo culture. However there are also daggers with pointed tang and objects such as doublespiral pendants. There are traces of local metalworking. The chemical composition of the metal is identical with that of the copper in the local sandstone. Also in the western taiga on the NW side of Lake Onega in Russian Karelia copper was mined and worked in early times. The artifacts found in northern Fennoscandia fit into the general picture of production found in the Russian forest area and further south. The que»tion is therefore whether it i» possible from the metal analyses to propose the origin of the copper itself. As already touched on, this requires that the analysed objects are not of mixed metal from different origins. This may be obvious in theory, but in practice it is really a matter ol' personal judgement. It is also necessary that there should be enough comparative data about raw materials. This last condition will probably never be met, a» a single ore body can have very variable composition, as Chernykh points out. It i» no advantage if the copper in the ore is very pure. Chernykh says that this makes it impossible to point out individual source» in the great Volga-Kama and west Ural area, or to distingui»h reliably the»e coppers from the metal extracted from the copper-bearing sandstones of the Donets ba»in in the eastern Ukraine.
There is yet another »et of problems to overcome when attempting to find the source of the metal. The ingredients of the ore react differently to pyrotechnical processes. By comparing the composition of copper ores, slags, and smelted copper from various prehistoric contexts, Chernykh has Cnrreni Sieedish Arelraeologs; Vol. 4, l996 established that the concentrations of gold and silver increase by a factor of between 10 and 100, as do arsenic, antimony and bismuth, while tin, lead and nickel are neutral or behave incon»istently. The metals of the iron group, »uch a» iron, manganese, titanium, vanadium, cobalt, chromium and molybdenum, are concentrated in the slag and therefore diminished in the smelted copper. Cadmium and zinc disappear almost entirely in smelting. This should be more than enough to convince the reader that the linking of metal to ore is a complex question. Neverthele»s Chernykh is of the opinion that the large research project of which he is the leader is fairly well able to connect a metal and the region where it was originally»melted.
It is naturally»impler to determine the origin of a piece of ore (1992: 18ft).
We may now return to the north Fennoscandian material. As mentioned above, a small piece of copper-bearing sandstone was found in the excavation of a Comb Ware settlement at Lillberget in Norrbotten, and the excavator, Ove Halén believes it to be ore, probably brought from the Volga-Ural region. A» the origin of the piece of sandstone i» not obviou», the claimed provenance must have been deduced from what i» known of the dominant stream of culture in northern Fennoscandia at the time. Halén mention» Alpine source» as another possibility (1994: 159f). He could also have mentioned the copper-bearing sandstones in the Donets basin in the Ukraine. When dealing afterwards with the cylindrical bead from Lillberg, which one could expect to have been made of copper»melted locally from the imported»and»tone, it is no surprise that he finds agreement» with the analyses of metal object» found in the Volga-Ural area. Now however he points out that it is not po»»ible completely to exclude the Onega area (1994; IS6). It seem» thus that the analysis really give» no direct indication of provenance.
Thi» is only to be expected. bearing in mind the remarks of Chernykh's mentioned above about how difficult it is to provenance very pure copper, such as the rnetal smelted from the sandstone in the Volga-Kama and western Ural regions, or from the Donets ba»in in the Ukraine. The Ural connection is also preferred for the metal of the ring from Suovaara (Taavit-»ainen 1982:45), while the metal of the adze from Kukkosaari is attributed in more general terms to the east, while the Onega region is considered as excluded (Huurre 1986:53).As intimated earlier, the author'» opinion is that mixed material of different origin can be present in the adze, and the same applies to the adze casting from Varri». It does not therefore seem po»»ible to locate the copper objects found in northern Fenno»candiaor rather their copperfrom the metal analyses. The object type» are also »omewhat insensitive. Opinions»eem to be based es»entially on where and in what context the objects were found, and on generally accepted opinions about what long-term connections and influence» affected the population of the area at the time.

FOREIGN CONNECTIONS-ESPECIALLY RUSSIAN FLINT
The north Fennoscandian copper find» all occurred in Comb Ware or A»be»to» Ware context». A» well as the site at Lillberget with typical Comb Ware style Il; I, Rik»antikvarieambetet's surveys in Norrbotten have in recent years found another with pottery in»tyle II:2, and another again with early Comb Ware I:1. The»ite» lay on the contemporary coast (Halén 1994:147fl).
Thi» showed immediately that Comb Ware wa» in use also on the north to we»t »ide» of the Bothnian Gulf, which makes clearer the connections with the great Comb Ware region to the east found in some other»tructural features and artifacts. A very obvious ca»e i» tlint of Ru»sian origin, which occurs both a» raw material, and as roughouts and finished products. The material from Lill-ö0 Amlers H»&, öer& berget was largely flint, and both Carboniferous and Cretaceous flint was present at the site. The Carboniferous flint in all events must be of Russian origin (Halén 1994: IOSff). Implements of this kind of flint in Upper Norrland have already been the subject of a brief introductory study (Huggert 1984). It was found that finds were almost entirely restricted to the contemporary coastal tract, and occurred sporadically along the whole coast as far as the mouth of the Umeå river in the south. An exception was an unfinished point found probably in Jämtland. Since then new material has been recorded or excavated as at Lillberget. There are also finds from sites in the middle Norrland coastal tract and in Hälsingland. Thi» preliminary study was enough to show that Carboniferous flint was imported into Upper Norrland in Middle Neolithic or Comb Ware times, and also in the Late Neolithic and in the Epineolithic/Bronze Age.
When examining the raw material it was valuable for the author to be able to make direct comparisons with a large collection of flint from Gustaf Hallström's work on settlements on the shores of the Dvina Gulf of the White Sea. This collection reached Statens Historiska Museum in Stockholm in 1915 (inv. no. 15313).As the Norrland material being studied consisted entirely of points, it was interesting to be able to compare directly with points from the White Sea. The next step was to investigate the use of flint in Finland, especially its northern part, especially with reference to points. In 197S more information on certain published material was obtained from Finnish archaeologists. In 1979 two of the points from Upper Norrland were sent to Helsinki for archaeological and petrological study. Unfortunately they had to be recalled in 1981 before any report had been received. Not until publication in 1985 (Kinnunen et al. ) (Gurina 1987:43).The east-west connections through northern Finland in the Stone and Bronze Ages, especially through the Kainuu area, have been dealt with in a praiseworthy manner by Matti Huurre on the basis of topography, archaeological finds, and to some extent settlement remains (1985,1986). Kainuu corresponds in a general way to the upper part of the Uleälven river basin. It has the source of its drainage at the watershed dividing it from rivers which finally enter the White Sea. At certain places anyone following one system upstream could easily cross the watershed and follow the other downstream. At several places there are easy ways from one drainage system over to the other. Another possibility on the north Finnish side was to cross between drainage basins and proceed in a north to south direction. Another route joined Kainuu with the Ladoga area to the SSE. In Huurre's opinion Carboniferous flint reached northern Finland by means of the east-west link. The same should apply to imports of copper, like the adze from Kukkosaari, and to the knowledge of casting indicated by the moulds from Suomussalmi. It may be pointed out that the ring from Polvijärvi is likeliest to be connected with the route between Lake Ladoga and Kainuu. Carboniferous flint may also have been transported this way. The Carboniferous beds lie in a long strip from the White Sea southwards, passing the SE part of Lake Onega (Atlas, map 9).
The geographical conditions for the establishment of deliberate connections and networks of this kind were basic to the life C&»'&e»& .S»:edith A&cl»&eoiogi:. Vol. i, l996 and evolution of the hunting communities of the vast forest area. There were good possibilities for contact favouring interchange of materials, skills, and ideas within cultural groups and between them. Material could in this way be disseminated more or less systematically over long distances. It is hardly likely that copper or Carboniferous flint were transferred directly by long-di»tance trade from their sources in the east to recipients in, for example, the coastal tract of the northern Bothnian Gulf, a view also held by Kjersti Schanche's in her paper on settlements and social structure in the Varanger area at around 2000 B.C. (1994:194f. ).
In conclusion it may be pointed out that the use of copper reached northern Fennoscandia remarkably early. It was not merely a matter of importing finished objects from the east and south-east, for it has been discovered that metallurgy, including the melting of metal, was being practised very early at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia. The copper artifacts from northern Fennoscandia were of varied character, and this suggests that our knowledge of the earliest use of metal is still at a fairly rudimentary level.