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Norwegian Archaeological Review


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House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers A Case Study of Stone Age Ostrobothnia, Finland
Charlotte Damm , Marek Zvelebil & Samuel Vaneeckhout
a a b c

Department of Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Troms, Norway


b c

Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK Archaeology GIS Laboratory, University of Oulu, Finland

Available online: 13 Jan 2011

To cite this article: Charlotte Damm, Marek Zvelebil & Samuel Vaneeckhout (2010): House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers A Case Study of Stone Age Ostrobothnia, Finland, Norwegian Archaeological Review, 43:2, 179-184 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2010.534594

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DISCUSSION Norwegian Archaeological Review, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2010


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Comments on Samuel Vaneeckhout: House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers: A Case Study of Stone Age Ostrobothnia, Finland (Norwegian Archaeological Review 43(1) 2010)
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WHATS IN A HOUSE?

CHARLOTTE DAMM
Damm, Zvelebil, and Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers Comments on House Vaneckhout

In this article Samuel Vaneeckhout introduces the term House Societies to the northern Fennoscandian Neolithic, a term originating in Levi-Strauss description of the Northwest Coast and more recently applied to the archaeology of that same area (e.g. Ames 2006, Marshall 2006). There is much to suggest that the concept of Houses has an excellent potential in interpretations of social, political and economic organization and interaction, not just in Northern Finland, but across Northern Fennoscandia. It is a great credit to Vaneeckhout that he makes this first attempt at employing House Societies on a selected archaeological dataset from the north. There are, however, some problems and queries with regard to his concrete interpretations and conclusions. In the first part of the paper Vaneeckhout is concerned more with environmental issues, which he claims contribute to the emergence of House Societies. Vaneeckhout argues that the shoreline displacement along the eastern shore of the Bothnian Bay resulted in increasing population density at the more stable river mouths,

as the communities were seeking predictability. But similar concentrations of settlement are seen along the Atlantic coast, where the land uplift caused very little change in topography during the period in question. In other words, while the variability in estuary stability may explain the particular location of the settlement concentrations, the change in settlement organization would appear to have no relation to the reduction of the coastline. It is an interregional phenomenon found in very diverse environments, and is therefore more likely due to more strategic social, political or economic decisions. One of the characteristics of House Societies on the Northwest coast is the strong link to place, including continuity in place. The House is constituted partly by its physical presence and the estate belonging to it. As Vaneeckhout points out for the Kierikki area, the apparently continuous habitation of certain sites over millennia is a recurrent phenomenon across northern Fennoscandia, where many locations may have more than 100 dwellings in total, but where these are clearly of different age, often spanning several millennia with the earliest dating to approximately 6000 cal. BP. This continuity in habitation must demonstrate more than

Charlotte Damm, Department of Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Troms, Norway. E-mail: Charlotte.Damm@sv.uit.no

DOI: 10.1080/00293652.2010.534594 2010 Taylor & Francis

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Damm, Zvelebil, and Vaneckhout Since the dwellings are dominated by different ceramic types, this could suggest some chronological difference. If the dwellings are contemporaneous, then the dominance of different pottery strengthens the argument for Houses with different contacts. Vaneeckhout also claims that the exotic goods are associated with the largest dwellings. This is not documented in any way. Vaneeckhout further argues that each of the dwelling clusters at Kierikki consists of a core of large dwellings and a group of smaller dwellings, supposedly corresponding to large successful Houses and the smaller less so. The graph in Fig. 7 does not demonstrate this unequivocally. All three clusters have considerable variation in dwelling size from about 30m2 to about 110m2 and 150m2 respectively with no clearly discernible groups. For both Kierikinkangas and Korvala one could argue that the majority of the dwellings are sized between 50 and 90m2, with one larger dwelling at c. 110m2. At Kierikki the dwellings apparently mainly cluster in groups of three or four. It is, however, not clear whether Vaneeckhout views each cluster as a House, or whether he believes each dwelling is a separate House. In his discussion Vaneeckhout focuses on the increasing inequality between Houses and different strategies that these may adopt in order to improve their status. One such strategy is long-distance interaction and exchange. There is considerable evidence for long-distance contacts in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in Northern Fennoscandia. Often mentioned items included eastern flint, Baltic amber and red slate. We must assume that exchange also included goods in organic material, seldom preserved and in any case less easy to determine provenience for. While this interaction was no doubt of great importance with regard to social and political standing, one must question whether the material really provides foundation for claiming that trade became a way of life and that the communities made a living out of trade. There is so far little evidence that

an economically advantageous setting, as there are other similar locations with no, or only a few, dwellings. This preference for continuity of place does indicate the existence of some formal organization based on place of some kind. The existence of an organization similar to House Societies is also compatible with the observation that certain areas appear to be more densely populated than others, and in addition have a higher proportion of imported and/or exotic goods and a greater degree of internal differentiation. This is documented very locally for the sites at Kierikki and would appear to be the case also in, for instance, the Varanger and Pasvik areas in Finnmark. While there are at present no analyses that demonstrate such diversification for other areas in northern Norway or Sweden it is well known that certain regional areas or locations stand out with respect to density of houses, size of houses and quality of artefacts and other material culture. In order to proceed from this very general and superficial observation, more detailed studies are required. This is exactly what Vaneeckhout sets out to do. Unfortunately, not all his arguments are entirely convincing. Over time the inequality between Houses is likely to increase. Larger Houses may be more successful both in dealing with risk and in developing and maintaining regional and long-distance interactions. Similarly successful Houses would probably attract more members and be able to be more selective in who is accepted into the House. Small Houses would be limited in available strategic choices. The clustering of exotic goods such as amber and flint on different banks of the river at Kierikki is a good indication of differential access to long-distance contacts. The internal distribution at Kuuselankangas as an indication of the existence of different Houses with different statuses is less clear. Vaneeckhout claims that all the dwellings here are contemporary, but the documentation from radiocarbon dates is not presented.

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Comments on House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers individuals or families lived as traders or middlemen in the northern Stone Age. The amount of amber does not seem to suggest any large-scale trade, and, rather than a more even distribution, it is in fact typical that a few graves contain a large number of beads. This would seem to fit better with the exchange of gifts between privileged formal partners. Specialization in certain crafts or the development of formalized exchange partners that made it possible for some Houses to control the distribution of specific goods does not necessarily imply that the exchange was in any way perceived as trade or barter. One of the very interesting aspects of the House Society model is the very open and dynamic composition of a House. Precisely the transmission of new technological knowledge that clearly takes place from 70006000 cal. BP onwards (pottery, slate, lithics) suggests an extensive degree of mobility, not just for short-term festivals or similar aggregating events. For these technologies to have been disseminated, long-term, if not permanent, residential moves must have taken place. Vaneeckhout has with this article opened a very interesting debate. Although I have some reservations with regard to certain specific claims and interpretations, the House Society model is well worth developing for Northern Fennoscandia. REFERENCES
Ames, K. 2006. Thinking about household archaeology on the Northwest Coast. In Sobel, E. A., Trieu Gahr, D. A. & Ames, K. (eds). Household Archaeology on the Northwest Coast, pp. 1636. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor, MI. Marshall, Y. 2006. Houses and domestication on the Northwest Coast. In Sobel, E. A., Trieu Gahr, D. A. & Ames, K. (eds). Household Archaeology on the Northwest Coast, pp. 3756. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor, MI.
Norwegian 1502-7678 0029-3652 Archaeological Review Vol. 43, No. 2, Oct 2010: pp. 00 SARC Review,

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STONE AGE GATEWAY COMMUNITIES IN OSTROBOTHNIA? MAREK ZVELEBIL


Damm, Zvelebil, and Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers Comments on House Vaneckhout

In this useful and thought-provoking study, Vaneeckhout applies the Levi-Straussian concept of House Societies to a body of prehistoric evidence from Ostrobothnia, consisting mostly of structural remains of houses and dating to the later Stone Age (65004000 cal. BP). The houses vary in size and in internal arrangements, although the remains themselves, judging by the structures at Kierikki that I have seen personally, are often difficult to identify accurately with any degree of certainty. On the one hand, the House Society argument has certain logic. As the author notes (pp. 15, 20, 22), settlements such as Kierikki had abundant exotic goods obtained through contact and exchange, such as south Baltic amber, Olonets slate and Valdai flint. This argument could have been taken a little further. The Iijoki River is a part of a vast river network that, with short distance interruptions, is connected to lakes Ladoga and Onega, to Daugava and to the Volga. Sites such as Kierikki, at the junction of the Bothnian Gulf and the Iijoki River mouth were in a perfect position to represent early examples of what Richard Hodges (1982) called gateway communities in a later, early medieval context. Such communities controlled trade over vast distances and their wealth was derived therefrom. The author discusses items that may have been traded in return for the exotic imports (p. 22): seal, fish, aquatic birds, skins, beaver and so on (as noted in Nunez & Okkonen 2005). It is worth emphasizing that this was after all a hunter-gatherer society, and matching House Society and hunter-gatherer economy is quite exceptional. Trade and exchange is the key element to this story. The

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Marek Zvelebil, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK. E-mail: m.zvelebil@shef.ac.uk

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Damm, Zvelebil, and Vaneckhout been storage structures for pots with seal oil and other similar products. This of course would require further testing, especially of sherds found in these structures. But, if true, this would be a remarkable situation, indicating a developed trading system of some complexity within an essentially a hunter-gatherer society. REFERENCES
Hodges, R. 1982. Dark Age Economics. Duckworth, London. Nunez, M. & Okkonen, J. 2005. Humanizing of north Ostrobothnian landscapes during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Journal of Nordic Archaeological Sciences 15, 2538. Zvelebil, M. 2006. Mobility, contact and exchange in the Baltic Sea Basin 60002000 B.C. In Lovis, W., Donahue, R. & Whallon, R. (eds). Mobility, Contact and Exchange in Mesolithic Europe. Special issue of Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. Zvelebil, M. 2008. Innovating hunter-gatherers. The Mesolithic in the Baltic. In Bailey, G. & Spikins, P. (eds). Mesolithic Europe, pp. 1860. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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structures at Kierikki held sherds of very large pots (something Vaneeckhout mentions only in passing, p. 17) indicating that such very large vessels were used for some purpose in these houses, and this was the case especially in the large houses discussed by the author. One possibility is that these vessels held seal oil or seal fat that was a main item of trade for exotic goods fat was a highly desired item in hunter-gatherer and early farming societies, especially in the inland regions of Europe (Zvelebil 2006, 2008). It is a little regrettable that Vaneeckhout, with the exception of exotic goods (p. 16), does not discuss in any detail artefact and bone remains variation in Kierikki and houses from other sites because that would shed more light on the function and social context of the house structures that form the main focus of his study. This brings me to another possible explanation for the house size variation in coastal Ostrobothnian sites, linked to the seal-fat trading argument. The larger house structures at Kierikki and other sites might have

Reply to Comments from Charlotte Damm and Marek Zvelebil


SAMUEL VANEECKHOUT
Comments on House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers

In my article I introduced the concept of House Societies in a northern Finnish prehistoric context. As with many introductions it was impossible to discuss in detail how we can apply the model to our archaeological material. I think there are two ways of using it. First of all we can use the concept as another kind of social system, different from corporate groups or households. And, second, I think the concept has a methodological use.

By applying the concept to archaeological material from different regions and time periods, comparative research is going to be easier. The open character of the concept allows of filling it with differently composed social groups. In the study of House Societies in Fennoscandia I think it is important to remember that northern Finland during the Stone Age is part of a larger system across time and

Samuel Vaneeckhout, Archaeology GIS Laboratory, University of Oulu, Finland. E-mail: samuel.vaneeckhout@gmail.com

Comments on House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers space. Prehistoric Finland and Fennoscandia are a mosaic of social groups and ecological systems during the Stone Age. All these groups and systems are interrelated on different scales with each other and with larger entities. In the long term we find some recurrent patterns in the socio-ecological dynamics of prehistoric Finland and across northern Europe. The changes suggested by the archaeological record of the Kierikki area in the period 65004000 cal. BP are a microcosm of the transition to greater social complexity in northern Finland and probably in northernmost Europe in general. This larger system, a system of regionally clustered groups, allows the spread of technological, cultural and social knowledge. It is not just a trading and exchange system. While the (environmental) circumstances are different in different regions there seem to be a lot of social similarities. The location of aggregation communities like the one at Kierikki is often the result of regional variation of some kind. On the coast of the Bothnian Bay the variation lies in the stability of the river mouths. It seems to me that social changes in communities are often related to changes in (social, technological and environmental) variability. Damm is correct in pointing out that the population aggregation does not have a relation to the reduction of the coast. It might not have been clear in my article that the changes at the Finnish Bothnian Bay coast happen in two steps. The reduction of the coast and the increase in population density are related to increasing sedentism in the region. The variability in river mouth stability is part of the explanation for the aggregation of people. But for all these changes to happen the social system needs to be ready. Communities need to have the social knowledge to deal with the changing system. One part of the system is the trading/ exchange part. Zvelebil suggests that the larger dwellings at Kierikki could have been linked to storage for trade. That is of course

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a possibility that needs to be further studied. But there is some evidence against this suggestion. First of all, the changes in variation of dwelling size continue after the last dwelling depressions have been built at Kierikki. In neighbouring areas we can find sites with single very large depressions without smaller depressions. These sites are no longer bound to the river mouths, but they are spread across the shoreline. Research at these sites points in the direction of residential use of these large dwelling depressions (Okkonen pers. comm.). Second, finds from some of the large depressions at Kierikki all point to a residential function. Third and maybe more importantly, during excavation in 2005 (Costopoulos pers. comm.) we uncovered the remains of a large two hearth-dwelling depressions at Kotikangas on the south side of the river. In the eastern wall of the dwelling we found a storage pit. Pottery sherds in the storage pit were lined along the bottom of the pit. The pit could be distinguished in the stratigraphy. There was a clear cut in the original sandy bottom. The storage pit, or more exactly the pot dug into the storage pit, must have been used for something fatty as chemical tests showed a high amount of lipids (Hulse pers. comm.). The excavated dwelling was used during two periods with a 1000-year time interval. The users used the storage facilities during these two periods. This was visible in the same stratigraphy: a smaller pit was dug in the large pit (which still contained the pottery) to store another pot, of which we also found some sherds along the edge of the pit. The presence of storage facilities for a lipidrich substance points in the direction of what Zvelebil calls a remarkable situation with a developed trading system of some complexity in a hunter-gatherer society. A second element which points in the same direction is the change in the trading goods during the transition between the Typical Comb Ware period and the Asbestos Ware period. Damms remark on the dwellings at Kuuselankangas and her suggestion that

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Damm, Zvelebil, and Vaneckhout Kierikki suggests significant changes in the composition of the Houses through time. At first the Houses seem to be related to single dwelling depressions. The rowhouse at Voima-Kuusela indicates a change towards larger Houses, probably including several families. After the large rowhouse we start finding clear clusters of three or four dwellings in proximity to each other. The distance between the clusters increases during younger periods of occupation. This indicates that people identified themselves more and more with the cluster of dwelling depressions, in my opinion with the House, not as large as at the Voima-Kuusela rowhouse any more but still including several families. How the families organized the House is a question that needs more research. It is too early to know whether the different families occupied different houses or if they divided their space more functionally. At the end of the Stone Age we find very large dwelling depressions which confirm the idea that the clusters of dwelling depressions can be called Houses, rather than the individual dwellings. For a long period dwellings were built separately in clusters. The pattern changes at the very end of the Stone Age when people built one very large dwelling (like Neolithic longhouses?) to house their House. REFERENCE
Vaneeckhout, S. 2009. Where is the social in social archaeology? Muinaistutkija 2009(2), 4044.

the different kinds of pottery suggest a chronological difference is of course a reasonable one. But it is my opinion that Kuuselankangas is part of the transition period between pottery styles. It is certain that there is continuity in the use of the dwellings. The radiocarbon record also shows that some of the larger and some of the smaller dwellings have been used contemporarily (Vaneeckhout 2009). The larger dwellings at the west side of Kuuselankangas are (in general) asbestos pottery-dominated and the amber finds were mostly from the same cluster of large depressions. In my opinion this suggests some social differences between the owners of the different dwellings. It is important not to see Kuuselankangas in isolation but in relation to the long-term archaeological record of Kierikki and in relation to economic specialization at Kotikangas at the south side of the river. Another element which supports the idea of a social explanation for Kuuselankangas is the fact that the larger dwellings would have been situated closer to the shore and would thus have better access to resources from the river. The difference in elevation is not large enough to use shoreline displacement as a sign for a chronological explanation. Damm further asks the question as to whether I see the clusters of three or four dwellings as Houses or whether every dwelling is a House in itself. If we see this clustering again in its long-term perspective it is my opinion that the archaeological record of

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