by Eero Muurimäki, Museum of Saarijärvi

1. Experiences concerning Stone
age building constructions in
Finland
Eero Muurimäki
Museum of Saarijärvi
emuurimaki@gmail.com

2. 2
History of the
studies
Räisälä Pitkäjärvi
• Sakari Pälsi,
• Excavation in 1915

3. 3
“Räisälä hut”
• 12 post hole making a
circle, 2 outside
• Pälsi: a conical hut
which an entry way.
• probably the main
structure has been
upright because of the
vertical post holes.
– slanting poles for the cover
had not been preserved.

4. • Pälsi made a sketch of the structure of the hut.
• no remains of the roofing material in the soil.
• He did not decide, if it has been covered with hides,
birch bark or twigs of spruces as contemporary hunter-
gatherers

5. • U. T. Sirelius, professor in
Ethnology, found an analogy in
Eastern Siberia
• A hut of the Gilyaks,
– nowadays known as the
Nivkhs

6. • After the later decades only 3 of
the kind were recognized among
thousands of excavated stone
age sites.
– Säkkijärvi, Hevonuitti
– Värtsilä Kesämaa
– Honkajoki, Lauhala Myllyluoma

7. 7
• C. F. Meinander ”pole holes” are main roots of pines.
• Our experimental studies: the inner horizontal structure of Räisälä hut
has no function, no need, because diameter of the circle is only 6 m)
• Oula Seitsonen 2005: Räisälä hut has probable been the same kind of
rectangular structure as the ”normal type” of pit house is nowadays
seem to be.
Räisälä hut in
Saarijärvi Stone Age
Village

8. Saarijärvi Stone age
village
The First Village
• Founded 1980
• Simo Vanhatalo the first
archaeologist
– Stone Age buildings
– reconstructed artefacts
– traps
– dugout
– possibility to try a stone
axe

9. 9
• Saarijärvi

10. In the beginning
• Huts of:
– Räisälä
– Narva
– Byske
– “Fur hut”
– a small pit house
– single walled lent-
to shelter hut

11. 11
Stone Age Village in the
beginning of 1990´s

12. 12
Small pit house
• Simo Vanhatalo
in front of the
picture

13. 13
Conical
“Hide hut”
• elk hides
• One small hut
needs 17 hides.
• to clean one hide
takes about
week
• very bad smell!

14. 14
Hut of Byske
• Byske and
Räisälä hut, only
turf
• Keeps water out
about 1/2 hours.
• Keep on raining
inside about 12
hours after the
rain outside has
stopped!
• too steep angle

15. 15
Hut of Narva
• Birch bark white
side out
• pieces about 0,5
x 1 m
• Keeps water
• cold in wintertime

16. 1616
Turf and birch bark
• Keeps water, warm also in winter time

17. 17
Birch bark
• Khanty (Ostyaks) summer dwelling
• birch bark backside up, sewn

18. 18
• Narva hut, model
1992
• sewn with tree roots,
about 2 km

19. “Northern
Ostrobothnian
type”
• Hannu Kotivuori 1983
• Turf and birch bark
• First new type after Pälsi
1915!
• In stone age village 1993
• Problem with the drawing:
– does the drawing mean an
gabled house or a Räisälä
hut type building.

20. 20
The New Village 1993
• Bases Evijärvi Isokangas, house grounds over 20 m in diameter.
• No structures found, not even fireplaces
• Depression round or oval

21. 21
Yurt-like structures
• Yurt-like structures 1993 planned according the form of
the pits.

22. 22
“Yurt hut”
• basically the same structure as n Räisälä hut, but two
rounds of upright posts and a turn

23. 23
• No evidence about the structure first
• In 1990`s evidence of rectangular structures

24. Puumala Kärmelahti
• 1998 – 1999
• 3 depressions .
• 3900 cal. BC.

25. 2525
Puumala Kärmelahti

26. 2626
Puumala Kärmelahti

27. 2727
Puumala Kärmelahti

28. 28
Rusavierto
house
• Excavation by
Sirpa Leskinen
and Petro
Pesonen 1990-
2000
• About 800 m from
Saarijärvi Stone
age village
Stone age
village
x

29. 29
Rusavierto house
• Saarijärvi,
Rusavierto
X Rusavierto

30. 30
Saarijärvi, Rusavierto
• 7 different periods
from Mesolithic to iron
age
• Fireplaces were
Mesolithic
• House pit n. 2200 cal
BC.

31. 31
• house was burnt.
• Wall lines about 30 cm fro the
corners out, timber frame

32. 32
• Diagram by Leskinen & Pesonen, National board of antiques

33. 33
• bark on the logs, timber
has not been barked.
• pine
• 2300 – 1900 cal BC.
• Pöljä ceramics from the
site is
contemporaneous.

34. 34
Reconstruction of Rusavierto
• Reconstruction by Sirpa Leskinen and Petro Pesonen year after
the excavation

35. 35
• use in winter assumes turf cover
• “turf” is the moss cover of the dry forest near by, not
from bog.

36. 36
• The structure is like Sami ”timber kota”
• Differences:
• Sami ”kota” is small and it is not semi subterranean

37. 37
Saarijärvi, Uimaranta
• Excavation by Leskinen & Pesonen 2001
• Uimaranta house pit
• 2 post holes found in profile.
• Symmetrically there should be 2 more.
• 3000 cal BC
• not published

38. 3838
• Structure: Räisälä hut –type with 4 upright posts.

39. 39
Uimaranta house

40. 40
House of Lillberget
• Ove Halén 1994
• Halén: the walls have to been relatively high because of the
fireplaces are so near to the gable walls.

41. Houses
• Excavated and reconstructed (drawing) by Ove Halén
• Two fireplaces in every house
• Halén: the walls have to been relatively high because of the
fireplaces are so near to the gable walls.

42. 42
House of Lillberget
• One of the houses of Lillberget as reconstructed in Saarijärvi Stone
Age village

43. “Vara”
• The timber walls were low because in Stone age there were no
“vara”, an tool for drawing the form of the undermost timber on the
uppermost timber.
• Without sharp fit wind goes through the walls
– In the picture an ethnographic example of “vara”, about 1000 years old.

44. Durability
• How long the huts will last depends on the covering.
• frameworks covered only with turf are non-usable within
three years.
• Constructions with birch bark only or with turf coverings
can survive 10 – 15 years
• if the huts are kept dry with heating inside, they can
remain in good condition for a much longer time.

45. The Stone
Age Village in
Saarijärvi
• in the year 2014
• 26 Ha

48. Litterature
• Christiansson, Hans, Knutsson Kjel 1985. Bjurselet – Gamla nya experiment. Finn
forntiden. Västerbottens norra fornminnesförening. Skellefteå museum. Meddelande
XLVII 1985.
• Halén, O. Sedentariness during the Stone Age of Northern Sweden in the light of the
Alträsket site, C. 5000 B.C., and the comb ware site Lillberget c. 3900 B.C. Source
Critical Problems of Representativity in Archaeology. Acta Archaeologica Lundensia.
Series in 4:o. No. 20. Stockholm 1994. 1-163.
• Hiekkanen, M. 1984. Otlitsitelnnye osbennosti postroek tipa madeneva.
otnosjastsihsja k manennomy veku. Novoe v apheologi CCCP i Finljandii. Nauka.
Ljeningrad.
• Karjalainen, Taisto 1996a. Outokumpu Sätös ja Orov Navolok 16, talo 3.
Muinaistutkija 1/1996. Helsinki.
• Kotivuori, Hannu. Kivikauden asumuksia Peräpohjolassa - vertailuja ja rakenteellisia
tulkintoja. Selviytyjät. Näyttely Pohjoisen ihmisen sitkeydestä. Lapin
maakuntamuseon julkaisuja 7. 1993
• Leskinen, Sirpa 2002. The Late Neolithic House at Rusavierto. In Helena Ranta (ed.).
Huts and Houses. Stone Age and Early Metal Age Buildings in Finland. National
Board of Antiquites. Helsinki

49. • Muurimäki, Eero 1995. Saarijärven museon kivikauden kylän rakennusennallistukset -
teoreettista taustaa. Muinaistutkija 2/1995. Suomen arkeologinen seura r.y. Helsinki
1995. s. 3-11.
• Muurimäki, Eero 2007. Stone Age Village in Saarijärvi - an Overview. Vilkuna, Janne,
Taavitsainen, Jussi-Pekka and Heiskanen, Virpi (ed). IV Mittnordiska arkeologidagar
Saarijärvi 14.-16. Juni 2007. Keski-Suomi 20. Säynätsalo. s. 91 -112.
• Pälsi, Sakari 1916. Kulttuurikuvia kivikaudelta. Otava. Helsinki
• Pälsi, Sakari 1918. Kaivaus Pitkäjärven kivikautisella asuinpaikalla Räisälässä v.
1915. Suomen Museo XXV. Helsinki 1918.
• Räihälä, Oili 1997. Kuoppatalon ”merkitys”. Muinaistutkija 4/1997. Helsinki
• Seitsonen, Oula 2006. Räisälä Pitkäjärvi revisited – new interpretations of the
dwelling remains. Arkeologipäivät 2005. Suomen arkeologinen seura Hamina 2006.
• Sepänmaa, Timo 1987. Saarijärven museon kivikauden kylä. Saarijärven museon
kivikauden kylän opasjulkaisu. Saarijärven museon julkaisuja 1. Paavon paino ky.