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ahb-writes · 3 years

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Elk Teeth As Cultural Signifier

"The elk was the most important animal for Eurasian prehistoric hunter-gatherers," according to researchers.

This is an illustration (by Tom Björklund), reconstructing the burial/grave of a Stone Age individual, found in what is now Russia's Republic of Karelia.

Ornaments, goods, evidence of clothing, and various artifacts from dozens of separate burials dating back to 6200 BCE (Late Mesolithic period) reveal the importance of the Eurasian elk to local culture and custom. The burial ground excavation showed more than 4,300 Eurasian elk teeth pendants.

Elks have eight incisors each. Elk teeth were used as pendants and in other forms of cultural communication; during funerary rights, yes, but also sewn into clothing earlier in life, used as necklaces, and functioning in parallel with prevailing, strict culture norms. Interestingly, elk were sparse in the forested area where these Stone Age people lived, leading researches to believe the large animals were not killed often.

But researchers hypothesize whether the number of tooth pendants were associated with wealth, a life well-lived (or long-lived), or were a reflection of artisanal personality.

"Based on our observations, we suggest that elk teeth were associated with the lived life of the buried people and that pendants were personal belongings of the deceased. The amount of elk teeth clearly divides the deceased. Because the amount of teeth in the graves does not increase with the age of the deceased, the elk teeth cannot be understood only as signs of accumulated wealth or prestige gained during life. Their importance was something more profound and meaningful than a mere symbol of wealth."

Assessments of this find reinforce previous analysis of the central role of elk in the economic, social, and religious structures of northeastern European people who resided in these areas (e.g., as previously evidenced through surviving artistic depiction).

Additional Reading

Strickland, A. 2021. "Burial Ground Reveals Stone Age People Wore Clothing Covered in Elk Teeth." CNN World.

Mannermaa, K., R. Rainio, E.Y. Girya, and D.V. Gerasimov. 2021. "Let's Groove: Attachment Techniques of Eurasian Elk (Alces alces) Tooth Pendants at the Late Mesolithic Cemetery Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (Lake Onega, Russia)." Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 13: article 3.

#writing research #mesolithic period #prehistoric #writeblr #elk teeth #archeology #anthropology #archaeological and anthropological sciences #alces alces #eurasian elk #northwest russia #ashley strickland #kristiina mannermaa #stone age #mesolithic cemetery #burial ground #hunter gatherer #religious signification #cultural signification

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sciencespies · 3 years

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This cool 4,400-year-old snake stick from Finland may have belonged to a shaman

https://sciencespies.com/humans/this-cool-4400-year-old-snake-stick-from-finland-may-have-belonged-to-a-shaman/

This cool 4,400-year-old snake stick from Finland may have belonged to a shaman

A wooden stick carved into the shape of a snake dating back about 4,400 years has been discovered by a lake in southwest Finland. The stick may have been used for mystical purposes by a shaman.

“I have seen many extraordinary things in my work as a wetland archaeologist, but the discovery of this figurine made me utterly speechless and gave me the shivers,” archaeologist Satu Koivisto said in a statement. Koivisto is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku in Finland who leads research at Järvensuo, the site where the object was found.

The figure, which is 21 inches (53 centimeters) long and about an inch (2.5 cm) thick, was “carved from a single piece of wood,” Koivisto and co-author Antti Lahelma, an archaeologist at the University of Helsinki, wrote in a paper published June 29 in the journal Antiquity.

“The figurine is very naturalistic and resembles a grass snake (Natrix natrix) or a European adder (Vipera berus) in the act of slithering or swimming away,” the researchers wrote.

Related: The 25 most mysterious archaeological finds on Earth

A researcher not involved in the study suggested the artifact may depict a viper. “I would say that a viper is more correct, due to the shape of its head, the short body and distinguishable tail,” Sonja Hukantaival, a postdoctoral researcher in Nordic Folkloristics at Åbo Akademi University in Finland, told Live Science in an email.

“This is interesting, since the viper has an important role in much later (historical) folk religion and magic.”

The snake figurine where it was found and the excavated artefact photographed from above (S. Koivisto).

The carving could have been used as a decorative figurine, or perhaps it was a staff used by a shaman, the researchers wrote.

“As a preliminary hypothesis, it seems reasonable, however, to place the artifact in the religious sphere,” the researchers wrote. According to historical records that discuss pre-Christian beliefs, “snakes are loaded with symbolic meaning in both Finno-Ugric and Sámi cosmology, and shamans were believed to be able to transform into snakes” they said.

The Sámi live in northern Scandinavia and Russia, while Finno-Ugric languages are spoken in Scandinavia and eastern Europe.

However, the artifact dates back to long before Finnish people began keeping written records, and researchers can’t be certain that people held the same beliefs around 4,400 years ago, Koivisto told Live Science.

The team has also found a large number of fishing artifacts at the Järvensuo site, suggesting ancient fishers frequented the area.

Fascinating find

Experts not affiliated with the research told Live Science that they found the find fascinating.

“This marvelous find shows that people in the Neolithic had a great concern over the subterranean world that we, today, are mostly unaware of,” said Vesa-Pekka Herva, the head of the archaeology department at the University of Oulu in Finland.

A few scholars that Live Science talked to raised the idea that the artifact could be an offering. The fact that it was found in a wetland by a lake “supports the idea that this precious artifact was an offering, and not an accidentally lost item,” said Kristiina Mannermaa, a professor in the department of cultures at the University of Helsinki.

Mannermaa noted that Finland’s acidic soil does not often preserve wooden artifacts for so long. “This is a remarkable sign for Finnish archaeologists that such wetland sites must be investigated before they are destroyed by, for example, drainage and peat extraction [a process in which peat is removed and sold as fertilizer],” said Mannermaa.”

The discovery may be important for the modern day Sámi people said Francis Joy, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lapland.

If the artifact “was linked with the ancient ancestors of the Sámi it would bring into focus issues concerning repatriation and also give the Sámi people validation in terms of their prehistory in southern Finland” Joy told Live Science. At times the Sámi have faced discrimination and have campaigned for their rights for many years.

Joy also said that more archaeological work should be done to see if there is an offering place close to where the artifact was found.

Research at the site and analysis of the artifact are ongoing. Researchers are attempting to determine what kind of wood the artifact is made from.

Related content:

Back to the Stone Age: 17 key milestones in Paleolithic life

30 of the world’s most valuable treasures that are still missing

7 bizarre ancient cultures that history forgot

This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.

#Humans

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sonicstudies · 6 years

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Journal of Sonic Studies Issue 15 Online!

The 15th issue of the Journal of Sonic Studies is online, which again is an issue consisting of papers by authors who responded to our last open call for papers. While no underlying or overarching theme was set for this issue, the papers we selected all seem to explicitly address the relation between sound and culture. More specifically, they discuss the ways in which sound is used and experienced in culture, both present and past.

Journal contents:

Editorial: Sound as/in/on Culture - Vincent Meelberg

Recapturing the sounds and sonic experiences of the hunter-gatherers at Ajvide, Gotland, Sweden (3200‒2300 cal BC) - Riitta Rainio, Kristiina Mannermaa and Juha Valkeapää

The Cave and Church in Tomba Emmanuelle: Some Notes on the Ritual Use of Room Acoustics - Petter Snekkestad

Managing the Sonic Environment: Ambient Noise, Creativity and the Regime of Ubiquitous Work - Artur Szarecki

Historically Informed Soundscape: Mediating Past and Present - D. Linda Pearse, Ann Waltner, and C. Nicholas Godsoe

The Relationality of the Adhaan: A Reading of the Islamic Call to Prayer Through Adriana Cavarero’s Philosophy of Vocal Expression - Lutfi Othman

The Secret Theatre Revisited: Eavesdropping on Locative Media Performances - Pieter Verstraete

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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yesilovehorses-blog1 · 7 years

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Study: Hooks on Horse Teeth an Age-Old Problem

New Post has been published on http://lovehorses.net/study-hooks-on-horse-teeth-an-age-old-problem/

Study: Hooks on Horse Teeth an Age-Old Problem

The horse this hooked tooth belonged to was buried between 1300 and 1500 AD in what’s now Levänluhta, Ostrobothnia, Finland.

Photo: Courtesy Dr. Suvi Viranta-Kovanen

The way people cared for their horses in different times and cultures across history is often a mystery. But clues come in all forms: ancient texts, drawings, bones, and even teeth. Case in point: Researchers just made an important archaeological discovery about horse management in the form of a hook—specifically, a medieval equine tooth hook.

“The medieval hook is just one piece in a puzzle to understand medieval horses and the equine husbandry of that time,” said Suvi Viranta-Kovanen, PhD, of the University of Helsinki Faculty of Medicine, Anatomy, in Finland.

“The presence of a high hook tells us that the horse was taken care of and provided enough high-quality feed to survive with a compromised mastication,” she said, referring to the horse’s ability to eat despite chewing challenges stemming from that hook.

Unlike human teeth, horse teeth keep growing throughout their lives, Viranta-Kovanen said. This is probably an evolutionary adaptation that allows horses to continue to have functional chewing surfaces despite their teeth eroding regularly on rough materials from grazing. As such, it’s the grazing on rough materials that maintains a balance with the growth. The teeth get eroded little by little as they grow. If, however, the horse has a diet low in roughage or if he has dental misalignments, the teeth won’t get eroded the way they should. The result is overgrowth, often a long section of tooth called a hook.

Viranta-Kovanen and fellow researcher Kristiina Mannermaa, PhD, of the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies/Archaeology, also at the University of Helsinki, discovered the hook in a horse buried between 1300 and 1500 AD. The horse came from an excavation site in a spring deposit in Levänluhta, Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the first reported mandibular hook in a medieval horse.

The horse, who was probably about 7 years old when he died, probably suffered from an underbite, Viranta-Kovanen said. And his medieval diet composed primarily of soft foods probably didn’t help keep that hook from growing.

“Without regular floating, both conditions would easily lead to the development of high hooks,” she said. “So this archeological horse would have needed his teeth attended to.”

The research team’s current and previous work has revealed that medieval horses in this part of the world consumed very little hay, straw, or even fresh grass, especially in winter, Viranta-Kovanen said.

“They were fed mainly soft fodder, at least for part of the year,” she said. “Because of the Northern climate, there was no opportunity for grazing during the winters, but horses were probably not provided even much of abrasive forage, such as hay or straw, to wear the teeth evenly.”

Owners fed these pony-sized horses grains and leaves … whatever was available in the season. And that would surely have affected their dental health, just as it would horses today. “When horses chew soft fodder, they do less back and forth movements between their jaws promoting the development of hooks,” said Viranta-Kovanen. “As Leväluhta horses ate more grain and leaf fodder and less hay and other forage, the development of the hook in the underbite horse was pronounced.”

While it might make it sound like the medieval owners weren’t choosing the best diets for the horses, they probably took very good care of them, in reality, the researchers said. They fed the horse well enough for him to continue living despite this hook that probably made it difficult for the horse to chew food properly, Viranta-Kovanen added.

This is consistent with other findings from their research, which indicated that medieval owners developed strong attachments with their horses.

“Historic records reveal that horses were valued beyond the value they might have had as working animals,” Viranta-Kovanen said. “The Leväluhta horses were buried in the pond where there were human bones from the Iron Age. People put their deceased horses in a grave of humans.”

The study, “A tall rostral hook in a medieval horse premolar tooth,” was published in the International Journal of Paleopathology.

About the Author

Christa Lesté-Lasserre, MA

Christa Lesté-Lasserre is a freelance writer based in France. A native of Dallas, Texas, Lesté-Lasserre grew up riding Quarter Horses, Appaloosas, and Shetland Ponies. She holds a master’s degree in English, specializing in creative writing, from the University of Mississippi in Oxford and earned a bachelor’s in journalism and creative writing with a minor in sciences from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. She currently keeps her two Trakehners at home near Paris. Follow Lesté-Lasserre on Twitter @christalestelas.

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