Vesa-Pekka Herva | University of Oulu (original) (raw)
Books by Vesa-Pekka Herva
In its analysis of the archaeologies and histories of the northern fringe of Europe, this book pr... more In its analysis of the archaeologies and histories of the northern fringe of Europe, this book provides a focus on animistic–shamanistic cosmologies and the associated human–environment relations from the Neolithic to modern times. The North has fascinated Europeans throughout history, as an enchanted world of natural and supernatural marvels: a land of light and dark, of northern lights and the midnight sun, of witches and magic and of riches ranging from amber to oil. Northern lands conflate fantasies and realities.
Rich archaeological, historical, ethnographic and folkloric materials combine in this book with cutting-edge theoretical perspectives drawn from relational ontologies and epistemologies, producing a fresh approach to the prehistory and history of a region that is pivotal to understanding Europe-wide processes, such as Neolithization and modernization. This book examines the mythical and actual northern worlds, with northern relational modes of perceiving and engaging with the world on the one hand and the ‘place’ of the North in European culture on the other.
This book is an indispensable read for scholars of archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies and folklore in northern Europe, as well as researchers interested in how the North is intertwined with developments in the broader European and Eurasian world. It provides a deep-time understanding of globally topical issues and conflicting interests, as expressed by debates and controversies around Arctic resources, nature preservation and indigenous rights.
Papers by Vesa-Pekka Herva
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2023
This article employs the labyrinth as an analytical and interpretive tool for thinking about Mino... more This article employs the labyrinth as an analytical and interpretive tool for thinking about Minoan architectural and especially palatial space with a particular focus on Knossos. Whether or not Minoan ruins inspired later Greek mythical narratives, Knossos can be examined as a kind of a labyrinth towards developing new perspectives on Knossos as an experienced environment and how it was entangled with broader cultural and cosmological ideas. A labyrinth perspective enables bringing together multiple spatial, material and cultural forms for the heuristic purposes of exploring palatial space in relation to how the environment and world were perceived in Minoan Crete. Knossos afforded participants a mystical experience that provided glimpses of, or openings into, different dimensions of a layered reality—the richness of the world extending beyond the readily perceivable surface of reality—in a literally and figuratively labyrinthine experienced palatial environment.
This article examines mechanisms of marginalization in the monocultural setting of Finland in the... more This article examines mechanisms of marginalization in the monocultural setting of Finland in the early 1990s through the case of the multinational Iriadamant "lifestyle Indians". The Iriadamant imitated Native Americans in appearance, and the "tribe" settled in Finnish Lapland to experiment with a non-consumerist ecological and spiritual way of living off-grid. We examine how this community was perceived in Finland and assess how Finnish perceptions of Iriadamant otherness and marginality were anchored on material culture and material practices. Furthermore, we discuss how the marginalization of the Iriadamant resonated and was intertwined with the marginalization and exoticization of Lapland, which is part of the ancestral homelands of the indigenous Sámi and has for centuries been seen as an enchanted land of natural and supernatural wonders. We consider marginality and marginalization in the context of the Iriadamant in Lapland through more specific issues of identity/indigeneity, ecology and spirituality.
The unknown and exotic North fascinated European minds in the early modern period. A land of natu... more The unknown and exotic North fascinated European minds in the early modern period. A land of natural and supernatural wonders, and of the indigenous Sámi people, the northern margins of Europe stirred up imagination and a plethora of cultural fantasies, which also affected early antiquarian research and the period understanding of the past. This article employs an alleged runestone discovered in northernmost Sweden in the seventeenth century to explore how ancient times and northern margins of the continent were understood in early modern Europe. We examine how the peculiar monument of the Vinsavaara stone was perceived and signified in relation to its materiality, landscape setting, and the cultural-cosmological context of the Renaissance–Baroque world. On a more general level, we use the Vinsavaara stone to assess the nature and character of early modern antiquarianism in relation to the period's nationalism, colonialism and classicism.
Arctic Anthropology, 2017
Abstract. Quartz was an important and widely used lithic material in the prehistory of circumpol... more Abstract. Quartz was an important and widely used lithic material in the prehistory of circumpolar Eurasia. While ethnographic and other data indicate that quartz has been invested with special qualities and meanings in various cultures around the world, archaeological studies in circumpolar Europe have tended to discuss quartz use in exclusively practical and technological terms. This article takes a “nontechnological” approach to quartz finds from the boreal zone of northeastern Europe. We identify spatiotemporal variations in quartz use and explore how quartzes were perceived and signified in the cultural and cosmological context of Stone Age eastern Fennoscandia, concentrating particularly on what we call “high- quality quartzes.” More specifically, we analyze and interpret patterns of quartz use in relation to the Neolithization of northern Eurasia. We discuss our findings against the animistic- shamanistic cosmologies of circumpolar communities and especially in regard to the emerging Neolithic worldview in the north.
Культурние процессы в циркумбалтийском пространстве в раннем и среднем голоцене: Доклады международной научной конференции, посвященной 70-летию со дня рождения В.И. Тимофеева, Санкт-Петербург, Россия, 26–28 апреля 2017 г (Д.В. Герасимов, ed.)) , Apr 2017
Анализируются изменения в использовании разных типов сырья для производства каменных орудий в рег... more Анализируются изменения в использовании разных типов сырья для производства каменных орудий в регионе озера Сайма в Восточной Финляндии во время распространения традиции типичной гребенчато-ямочной керамики в 4 тыс. до н.э. Полученные результаты позволяют предположить проникновение в южную часть региона нового населения в результате миграции и постепенное развитие социальных контактов с населением северной части. Рассматриваются возможности моделирования древних систем социальных связей в регионе.
The adoption of pottery in eastern Fennoscandia in the later sixth millennium BC has traditionall... more The adoption of pottery in eastern Fennoscandia in the later sixth millennium BC has traditionally been understood in straightforward technological and practical terms, and as a development that did not mark other significant changes in local culture or ways of life. Recent research in the region, combined with new ideas about Neolithization in Eurasia more generally, nonetheless suggests that the adoption of pottery was associated with more fundamental cultural and environmental transformations than has previously been thought. This article brings together diverse old and new data from northeastern Europe and discusses the character and dynamics of cultural and human-induced environmental change following the adoption of pottery. The aim is to provide a scenario of long-term cultural changes and, in particular, to consider the significance and broader implications of the very practices of clay use and cultivation, as well as their links to wider cultural and environmental phenomena.
Археология сакральных мест России: Сборник тезисов докладов научной конференции с международным участием (Соловки, 7–12 сентября, 2016 г.): 25–30. , Sep 2016
This article addresses the functions and meanings of Second World War German material heritage in... more This article addresses the functions and meanings of Second World War German material heritage in northern Finland from a haunting perspective and in terms of magical thinking. While archaeologists and heritage professionals have primarily been interested in the historical information that Second World War sites and military material culture may contain, this article explores how encounters and engagements with Second World War materialities in the northern wilderness of Lapland can be considered to affect people and manipulate their perceptions, awareness and understanding of the surrounding world. Second World War sites and matériel may be taken to promote a kind of magical consciousness which enables a degree of restructuring of relationships between the self and world and the past and present.
This article discusses fabrications and alternative histories, and their relationship with antiqu... more This article discusses fabrications and alternative histories, and their relationship with antiquarian and early archaeological practice, in the Baroque world through the case of an alabaster urn reportedly found in the garden of a Swedish royal castle in 1685. The urn, decorated with a strange inscription, is used to address broader issues of how the
past was conceived in the Baroque world, and how the relationship between the past and present was manipulated through antiquarian research. Certain characteristics of the urn and its cultural life have led modern scholarship to dismiss the artefact as ‘unauthentic’ and hence uninteresting, whereas this article seeks to reconsider the nature and meanings of fabricating the past in the seventeenth century. It will be argued that the past was not fixed in the Baroque world, but various material and magical practices enabled altering the past. It is against that background, and within the Baroque
relational understanding of reality, that the seventeenth-century interest in and manipulations of the urn must be understood.
Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things (ed. C. Watts), 2013
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2012
Archaeology of Spiritualities, 2012
Journal of Material Culture, 2010
World Archaeology, 2010
Animistic and other alternative ontologies have recently been discussed in archaeology and materi... more Animistic and other alternative ontologies have recently been discussed in archaeology and material culture studies, but these discussions, while not entirely unfamiliar to historical archaeology, have so far had a limited impact on our understanding of the post-medieval Western world. This paper uses Western esoteric thought and folk beliefs to engage with the idea of the relational constitution of reality. It is argued that forms of ‘magical thinking’ are relevant not only to the interpretation of particular ‘special’ activities and things but can provide new perspectives on the very dynamics of how people perceived and engaged with the world. The proposed reassessment of esoteric thought and folk beliefs has implications for, and is informed by, material culture studies. The paper begins with alchemy and proceeds to discuss broader issues.
Nordenskiöld-samfundets tidskrift, 2012
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (ed. C. Smith), 2014
In its analysis of the archaeologies and histories of the northern fringe of Europe, this book pr... more In its analysis of the archaeologies and histories of the northern fringe of Europe, this book provides a focus on animistic–shamanistic cosmologies and the associated human–environment relations from the Neolithic to modern times. The North has fascinated Europeans throughout history, as an enchanted world of natural and supernatural marvels: a land of light and dark, of northern lights and the midnight sun, of witches and magic and of riches ranging from amber to oil. Northern lands conflate fantasies and realities.
Rich archaeological, historical, ethnographic and folkloric materials combine in this book with cutting-edge theoretical perspectives drawn from relational ontologies and epistemologies, producing a fresh approach to the prehistory and history of a region that is pivotal to understanding Europe-wide processes, such as Neolithization and modernization. This book examines the mythical and actual northern worlds, with northern relational modes of perceiving and engaging with the world on the one hand and the ‘place’ of the North in European culture on the other.
This book is an indispensable read for scholars of archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies and folklore in northern Europe, as well as researchers interested in how the North is intertwined with developments in the broader European and Eurasian world. It provides a deep-time understanding of globally topical issues and conflicting interests, as expressed by debates and controversies around Arctic resources, nature preservation and indigenous rights.
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2023
This article employs the labyrinth as an analytical and interpretive tool for thinking about Mino... more This article employs the labyrinth as an analytical and interpretive tool for thinking about Minoan architectural and especially palatial space with a particular focus on Knossos. Whether or not Minoan ruins inspired later Greek mythical narratives, Knossos can be examined as a kind of a labyrinth towards developing new perspectives on Knossos as an experienced environment and how it was entangled with broader cultural and cosmological ideas. A labyrinth perspective enables bringing together multiple spatial, material and cultural forms for the heuristic purposes of exploring palatial space in relation to how the environment and world were perceived in Minoan Crete. Knossos afforded participants a mystical experience that provided glimpses of, or openings into, different dimensions of a layered reality—the richness of the world extending beyond the readily perceivable surface of reality—in a literally and figuratively labyrinthine experienced palatial environment.
This article examines mechanisms of marginalization in the monocultural setting of Finland in the... more This article examines mechanisms of marginalization in the monocultural setting of Finland in the early 1990s through the case of the multinational Iriadamant "lifestyle Indians". The Iriadamant imitated Native Americans in appearance, and the "tribe" settled in Finnish Lapland to experiment with a non-consumerist ecological and spiritual way of living off-grid. We examine how this community was perceived in Finland and assess how Finnish perceptions of Iriadamant otherness and marginality were anchored on material culture and material practices. Furthermore, we discuss how the marginalization of the Iriadamant resonated and was intertwined with the marginalization and exoticization of Lapland, which is part of the ancestral homelands of the indigenous Sámi and has for centuries been seen as an enchanted land of natural and supernatural wonders. We consider marginality and marginalization in the context of the Iriadamant in Lapland through more specific issues of identity/indigeneity, ecology and spirituality.
The unknown and exotic North fascinated European minds in the early modern period. A land of natu... more The unknown and exotic North fascinated European minds in the early modern period. A land of natural and supernatural wonders, and of the indigenous Sámi people, the northern margins of Europe stirred up imagination and a plethora of cultural fantasies, which also affected early antiquarian research and the period understanding of the past. This article employs an alleged runestone discovered in northernmost Sweden in the seventeenth century to explore how ancient times and northern margins of the continent were understood in early modern Europe. We examine how the peculiar monument of the Vinsavaara stone was perceived and signified in relation to its materiality, landscape setting, and the cultural-cosmological context of the Renaissance–Baroque world. On a more general level, we use the Vinsavaara stone to assess the nature and character of early modern antiquarianism in relation to the period's nationalism, colonialism and classicism.
Arctic Anthropology, 2017
Abstract. Quartz was an important and widely used lithic material in the prehistory of circumpol... more Abstract. Quartz was an important and widely used lithic material in the prehistory of circumpolar Eurasia. While ethnographic and other data indicate that quartz has been invested with special qualities and meanings in various cultures around the world, archaeological studies in circumpolar Europe have tended to discuss quartz use in exclusively practical and technological terms. This article takes a “nontechnological” approach to quartz finds from the boreal zone of northeastern Europe. We identify spatiotemporal variations in quartz use and explore how quartzes were perceived and signified in the cultural and cosmological context of Stone Age eastern Fennoscandia, concentrating particularly on what we call “high- quality quartzes.” More specifically, we analyze and interpret patterns of quartz use in relation to the Neolithization of northern Eurasia. We discuss our findings against the animistic- shamanistic cosmologies of circumpolar communities and especially in regard to the emerging Neolithic worldview in the north.
Культурние процессы в циркумбалтийском пространстве в раннем и среднем голоцене: Доклады международной научной конференции, посвященной 70-летию со дня рождения В.И. Тимофеева, Санкт-Петербург, Россия, 26–28 апреля 2017 г (Д.В. Герасимов, ed.)) , Apr 2017
Анализируются изменения в использовании разных типов сырья для производства каменных орудий в рег... more Анализируются изменения в использовании разных типов сырья для производства каменных орудий в регионе озера Сайма в Восточной Финляндии во время распространения традиции типичной гребенчато-ямочной керамики в 4 тыс. до н.э. Полученные результаты позволяют предположить проникновение в южную часть региона нового населения в результате миграции и постепенное развитие социальных контактов с населением северной части. Рассматриваются возможности моделирования древних систем социальных связей в регионе.
The adoption of pottery in eastern Fennoscandia in the later sixth millennium BC has traditionall... more The adoption of pottery in eastern Fennoscandia in the later sixth millennium BC has traditionally been understood in straightforward technological and practical terms, and as a development that did not mark other significant changes in local culture or ways of life. Recent research in the region, combined with new ideas about Neolithization in Eurasia more generally, nonetheless suggests that the adoption of pottery was associated with more fundamental cultural and environmental transformations than has previously been thought. This article brings together diverse old and new data from northeastern Europe and discusses the character and dynamics of cultural and human-induced environmental change following the adoption of pottery. The aim is to provide a scenario of long-term cultural changes and, in particular, to consider the significance and broader implications of the very practices of clay use and cultivation, as well as their links to wider cultural and environmental phenomena.
Археология сакральных мест России: Сборник тезисов докладов научной конференции с международным участием (Соловки, 7–12 сентября, 2016 г.): 25–30. , Sep 2016
This article addresses the functions and meanings of Second World War German material heritage in... more This article addresses the functions and meanings of Second World War German material heritage in northern Finland from a haunting perspective and in terms of magical thinking. While archaeologists and heritage professionals have primarily been interested in the historical information that Second World War sites and military material culture may contain, this article explores how encounters and engagements with Second World War materialities in the northern wilderness of Lapland can be considered to affect people and manipulate their perceptions, awareness and understanding of the surrounding world. Second World War sites and matériel may be taken to promote a kind of magical consciousness which enables a degree of restructuring of relationships between the self and world and the past and present.
This article discusses fabrications and alternative histories, and their relationship with antiqu... more This article discusses fabrications and alternative histories, and their relationship with antiquarian and early archaeological practice, in the Baroque world through the case of an alabaster urn reportedly found in the garden of a Swedish royal castle in 1685. The urn, decorated with a strange inscription, is used to address broader issues of how the
past was conceived in the Baroque world, and how the relationship between the past and present was manipulated through antiquarian research. Certain characteristics of the urn and its cultural life have led modern scholarship to dismiss the artefact as ‘unauthentic’ and hence uninteresting, whereas this article seeks to reconsider the nature and meanings of fabricating the past in the seventeenth century. It will be argued that the past was not fixed in the Baroque world, but various material and magical practices enabled altering the past. It is against that background, and within the Baroque
relational understanding of reality, that the seventeenth-century interest in and manipulations of the urn must be understood.
Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things (ed. C. Watts), 2013
Journal of Social Archaeology, 2012
Archaeology of Spiritualities, 2012
Journal of Material Culture, 2010
World Archaeology, 2010
Animistic and other alternative ontologies have recently been discussed in archaeology and materi... more Animistic and other alternative ontologies have recently been discussed in archaeology and material culture studies, but these discussions, while not entirely unfamiliar to historical archaeology, have so far had a limited impact on our understanding of the post-medieval Western world. This paper uses Western esoteric thought and folk beliefs to engage with the idea of the relational constitution of reality. It is argued that forms of ‘magical thinking’ are relevant not only to the interpretation of particular ‘special’ activities and things but can provide new perspectives on the very dynamics of how people perceived and engaged with the world. The proposed reassessment of esoteric thought and folk beliefs has implications for, and is informed by, material culture studies. The paper begins with alchemy and proceeds to discuss broader issues.
Nordenskiöld-samfundets tidskrift, 2012
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (ed. C. Smith), 2014
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2009
Entangled beliefs and rituals: religion in Finland and Sápmi from Stone Age to contemporary times, 2020
Modern industrialized war and the supernatural may seem odd bedfellows, but recent research has i... more Modern industrialized war and the supernatural may seem odd bedfellows, but recent research has indicated that this relationship is much more important than has traditionally been recognized. This photo essay considers the haunting presence of a WW2 German prisoner-of-war camp for Soviet inmates in the environmental and cultural context of Finnish Lapland, or Sápmi, the homeland of the indigenous Sámi, which has long featured as an exotic and enchanted land in the European imagination. During our fieldwork at German prisoner camps in Lapland, we have come across some peculiar finds and features, including a heart carved on a pine tree at the site of Kankiniemi. We discuss this carving in relation to the stories and experiences of the supernatural associated with former Ger-man military sites and consider some broader implications of such stories and experiences from a heritage point of view.
The New Nomadic Age. Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 2018
Journal of Conflict Archaeology, 2017
This article discusses military mobilities and encampment, and associated themes such as dislocat... more This article discusses military mobilities and encampment, and associated themes such as dislocation and displacement of people, through the case of a Second World War German military camp in Finnish Lapland. The article describes the camp and its archaeological research and discusses various aspects of the camp and camp life in its particular subarctic ‘wilderness’ setting, framing the discussion within the themes of mobilities and dislocations, and especially their multiple impacts on the German troops and their multinational prisoners-of-war based in the camp. A particular emphasis is put on how mobilities and dislocation – in effect ‘being stuck’ in a northern wilderness – were intertwined and how the inhabitants of the camp coped with the situation, as well as how this is reflected in the different features of the camp itself and the archaeological material that the fieldwork produced.
Keywords: Conflict archaeology, Second World War, mobility, German, Prisoner of War, Lapland, Finland
Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2017
World Archaeology, 2016
Almost all archaeologists encounter collectors of different kinds of artefacts at some point in t... more Almost all archaeologists encounter collectors of different kinds of artefacts at some point in their career, whether it is the private collectors of financially valuable antiquities or ‘amateur archaeologists’ who have amassed personal collections of local finds. In our research into the material legacy of the German presence in northern Finland during World War II, we have encountered both artefact hunters (primarily but not exclusively metal detecting enthusiasts) and artefact collectors (sometimes the same people) with a specific interest in military remains from this location and period. In this article, we explore these alternative perspectives on collecting, and frame them within the context of treasure hunters, militaria collectors and other history hobbyists, and their relationship to the ‘official’ heritage managers and curators.
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2016
Sites connected to the Second World War (WWII) are increasingly recognized as worthy of archaeolo... more Sites connected to the Second World War (WWII) are increasingly recognized as worthy of archaeological investigation. Researchers are also becoming aware that that the collectors market in objects connected to WWII, particularly those connected to Germany, is encouraging the stripping of conflict landscapes in the search for “collectors items.” Finnish Lapland is sometimes regarded as peripheral compared to more centrally located regions of Europe. Archaeologists working here nonetheless find themselves in direct competition with enthusiastic treasure hunters. This is complicated even further by the myriad ontologies employed by different individuals in the construction of their relationship with the material culture connected to recent conflict periods, and on specific “other” or “exotic” landscapes, such as Lapland.
This paper examines what might be learnt about the nature of treasure hunting for and trading in WWII material from Lapland, and its position within the emerging research on broader trends in “dark” approaches to and encounters with heritage.
Archaeologies of Internment, edited by Adrian Myers and Gabriel Moshenska (One World Archaeology, Springer, 2011)., 2011
In the later part of the Second World War, Nazi German troops were responsible for a front of nea... more In the later part of the Second World War, Nazi German troops were responsible for a front of nearly a thousand kilometers in Lapland, Northern Finland. The Germans built close to 100 prisoner of war and labor camps in the area, and imprisoned some 30,000 Russian soldiers there. Since Lapland’s infrastructure was very poor, the prisoners were used as a workforce for tasks such as building and improving roads and bridges. The prison camps and military bases, as well as their archives, were almost completely destroyed during the German retreat from Finland, in 1944–1945, in the Lapland War between the Finns and the Germans. In this chapter we report on preliminary fieldwork at the German base of Peltojoki, and we discuss how archaeology can contribute to the study and understanding of military sites from the recent past.
Finnish and Nazi German troops invaded together Soviet Union in Second World War as part of Opera... more Finnish and Nazi German troops invaded together Soviet Union in Second World War as part of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Arctic front in Lapland was mostly on the German responsibility, but the German troops, unfamiliar with the northern environment and overcome by the poor infrastructure, made little advance and there was very little actual fighting in 1941–1944. However, owing to the demanding environmental setting, there were no continuous frontlines, but defense relied largely on isolated outposts, with vast stretches of wilderness between them. This enabled both sides to infiltrate guerilla troops behind the enemy frontlines: Finns sent out so-called long-range recon patrols for scouting and sabotage deep in Russian soil, whereas Soviet partisan troops moved through the wilderness to carry out reconnaissance and terror attacks on isolated Finnish homesteads and solitary vehicles. Soviet partisans murdered nearly 200 women, children and elderly people in the remote villages deep behind the frontlines. Finns and Germans formed anti-partisan troops to answer these attacks and to protect the distant homesteads, and also armed civilians, but this was not enough to prevent them totally. However, in the postwar decades these attacks were largely ignored and neglected, especially throughout the Cold War years until the fall of Soviet Union, to the dismay of the survivals and the relatives of the civilian casualties, and it took until late 1990s before they got national recognition or compensation. Despite that there has been relatively little research and the locals still feel that their heritage has been overlooked and sidelined.
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2021
During the Second World War, in 1941-1944, Nazi German troops held the frontal responsibility of ... more During the Second World War, in 1941-1944, Nazi German troops held the frontal responsibility of the Arctic front in Finnish Lapland. In this paper we present the first zooarchaeological study of the wartime faunal remains from German military camps in Lapland. This illustrates the supply situation of both the German soldiers and their multinational prisoners. The official military supply was substantially supplemented with local food sources, namely with the local semi-domesticated reindeer that dominates the bone assemblage. Bones of cattle, ovicaprines and pig occur in lower numbers and appear to represent the German long-distance supply chain stretching from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. The remains of reindeer and wild species remind of the close interactions with locals and of the prisoners' hunting activities to supplement their meagre diet. Even if the reindeer bones dominate both the soldiers' and prisoners' faunal assemblages, there are notable differences in the body parts, with bones from meatier portions always found in the soldiers' food waste. Besides highlighting a tension between the military supply and everyday demands, the faunal remains can draw attention to wider anthropological questions that reach beyond the information available in historical documents, such as adaptations into an alien northern environment. This emphasizes the importance of zooarchaeological analyses of recent past faunal materials from superficially familiar contexts.