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During the Bronze Age (ca. 1800-500 BC), cremation became the dominant burial practice in Finland. These Bronze Age (BA) cremations have been excavated from burial cairns in Finland for more than 150 years. This work provides new information on human osteology from this previously understudied area in northeastern Europe. The results cover the earliest period in Finnish prehistory for which large-scale human osteological assemblages are available. In this article, we present a comprehensive human osteological study on the curated bone collections of the National Museum of Finland and other provincial museums, and provide new radiocarbon datings of the cairns. The results show that the cairns were most often used for single burials, without accompanying animals or artefacts. Double and multiple burials became more common in the Iron Age. Porotic hyperostosis was a common finding. Signs of osteoarthritis are more common in the central Satakunta region, where Iron Age burial practices first emerged already during the Late Bronze Age. These observed changes can be connected to changes in subsistence strategies that also enabled permanent settlements.

In this paper we describe the results of small-scale archaeological fieldwork projects carried out i North Karelia, Finland, in 2003–2014, which ended up having a far greater research impact than anyone could have anticipated. The projects yielded a multitude of new and relevant information, especially on the Early Mesolithic, including the earliest radiocarbon dates for human occupation in Eastern Fennoscandia. Results of this research have been published in a variety of venues. We use this opportunity to present the first summary of these results and to emphasize that even with discontinuous short-term funding it is possible to carry out ambitious and influential research. Over the years, Karelia has been one of the main focus areas of Mika Lavento’s research. We want to honour Mika’s 60th birthday by providing an overview of the results of our studies conducted in the northern parts of this large geographical and administrative area.

The remains of a semi-subterranean house were discovered at the Kharlovka 1-6 site on the Barents Sea coast of the Kola Peninsula, Russia. Despite suffering from erosion, features such as a double stone-boarded hearth and chimney pipe together with diagnostic finds allow us to attribute the house to the so-called Gressbakken type. The artefact assemblage includes stone tools, bone and antler tools and adornments, asbestos-tempered pottery, an amber pendant and a copper tubular bead. Numerous faunal remains are primarily represented by marine species of mammals and birds. Radiocarbon dates on charcoal point to the period 2600–2300 calBC, which is also supported by the artefact types, elevation of the cultural layer and construction type of the house. When accounting for the early dates of Kharlovka 1-6 and several other dwellings, it can be assumed that the Gressbakken house tradition emerged around 2600–2300 calBC. This date is somewhat earlier than previously thought.

Levanluhta, an Iron Age water burial site in Finland, and its material consisting of commingled skeletal remains and artifacts, has been studied by several researchers over the past 100 years, resulting in multiple interpretations of the people and the site. Previous skeletal analyses have concluded that the majority of the individuals represented in the remains were females and children and were of relatively short stature, so possibly nutritionally deprived. This study re-analyzed the commingled adult human remains with updated methods. The methods applied in this study to estimate sex and stature were based on more representative European reference samples than the previously applied methods. The methods included morphology, osteometrics, and computed tomography (CT) scans. Our results indicated that depending on the reference data, the majority of the individual adult bones including os coxae (73%, n = 45) and long bones (humerus 83%-89%, n = 52; radius 72%-89%, n = 47; ulna 50%-65%, n = 58; femur 92%-100%, n = 25; tibia 77%-85%, n = 26) were classified as females based on their size and morphology. The cross-sectional bone properties of humerii, femora, and tibiae visualized using CT scanning also supported these findings. However, the cranial morphology did not show as clear female-biased sex ratio as other methods (42% females, 33% males, 24% undetermined, n = 33). In females, the mean stature based on the tibia (155.3 cm, n = 10) was within the range of the coeval European females and did not necessarily indicate nutritional deprivation, which is in line with previously published stable isotope findings from the site. The mean stature based on the tibia suggested that the Levanluhta males were short (164.0 cm, n = 3), but final interpretations were limited due to the small number of male individuals. The current study affirmed that the Levanluhta skeletal assemblage was female biased and gave new insights into interpretation of the stature.

More than 4300 Eurasian elk (Alces alces) incisors, most of them pendants, were found in 84 burials in the Late Mesolithic cemetery of Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, Northwest Russia. We analysed the manufacture techniques of elk teeth (4014), in the collection of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St Petersburg. A striking observation is that the manufacture of these pendants is similar in all burials. Teeth were worked by carving one or several grooves around the root tip. In addition to grooved ones, a number of teeth were not worked at all. The uniformity of the chosen species, tooth and techniques indicates that strict norms prevailed in the pendant industry. Despite the overall similarity, our study shows some variation in making pendants. A groove can cut the whole circumference of the root, or several distinct grooves can mark opposite sides of the root. Sometimes the grooves are deep and made carefully, and sometimes they are weak and made hastily. A typology of various groove types was created. In many graves, one groove type dominates. We interpret that this inter-burial variation and domination of one type resulted from personal choice and taste based on practicality. Such variation could also be associated with kin identifiers, but we did not find clear support for that in our study. Our study indicates that the groove types as such had no connection with particular ornaments, garments or hanging positions.

The use of feathers in ritual costumes and everyday clothing is well described in ethnographic sources throughout the world. From the same sources we know that bird wings and feathers were loaded with meaning in traditional societies worldwide. However, direct archaeological evidence of prehistoric use of feathers is still extremely scarce. Hence, feathers belong to the ‘missing majority’: items that are absent from the archaeological record but which we can assume to have been of importance. Here we present microscopic analysis of soil samples from hunter-gatherer burial contexts which reveal the first direct evidence of the use of feathers in the Mesolithic period of north-eastern Europe.

The focus of this article is an analysis of tubular bone items made by cutting off the epiphyses of large bird ulnae, such as those found in burials 67 and 69 at Late Mesolithic Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (Lake Onega, Northwest Russia). The bone tube from grave 69 was studied systematically, and tested to determine whether it could have been used as a sound instrument. In order to do so, we made a replica of the object, and tested its functions as a flute and a reed pipe. More generally, we propose alternatives to conventional and somewhat unimaginative interpretations of tubular bone artefacts. We raise awareness of their possible acoustic dimension, and discuss the outlook, structure, function and uses of simple bone flutes, whistles and reed pipes, highlighting their most common role as decoy whistles or animal calls. Blown instruments should be kept in mind when looking for explanations of tubular bone artefacts. Sound tools, and especially decoy whistles or animal calls, were common and necessary implements used everywhere and throughout all time periods, especially among hunters and fowlers, and should be considered a basic part of the bone tool assemblage.

Reindeer herding emerged among the indigenous Sámi of Northern Fennoscandia between ca. 800 and 1500 CE. While the details of the reindeer domestication process are still actively debated, it has been hypothesized that the transition to reindeer herding affected Sámi ritual practice, especially animal offerings given at various sacred sites. To explore this hypothesis, we analyzed DNA from reindeer bone samples dating to ca. 1200–1700 CE from Sámi offering sites located in present-day Northern Finland as well as from samples originating from ancient dwelling site in Southern Finland and Kola Peninsula, Russia. The results show that haplotypes related to wild Finnish forest reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) began to be replaced by haplotypes common in modern domesticated reindeer in the faunal assemblages from offering sites starting between 1400 and 1600 CE. The results suggest that, although the role of reindeer herding in the economy of the Sámi communities varied greatly, the transition to reindeer herding may have affected ritual practices, testifying to a shared way of reciprocating with the land and animals.

Background The Finnhorse was established as a breed more than 110 years ago by combining local Finnish landraces. Since its foundation, the breed has experienced both strong directional selection, especially for size and colour, and severe population bottlenecks that are connected with its initial foundation and subsequent changes in agricultural and forestry practices. Here, we used sequences of the mitochondrial control region and genomic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to estimate the genetic diversity and differentiation of the four Finnhorse breeding sections: trotters, pony-sized horses, draught horses and riding horses. Furthermore, we estimated inbreeding and effective population sizes over time to infer the history of this breed. Results We found a high level of mitochondrial genetic variation and identified 16 of the 18 haplogroups described in present-day horses. Interestingly, one of these detected haplogroups was previously reported only in the Przewalski’s horse. Female effective population sizes were in the thousands, but declines were evident at the times when the breed and its breeding sections were founded. By contrast, nuclear variation and effective population sizes were small (approximately 50). Nevertheless, inbreeding in Finnhorses was lower than in many other horse breeds. Based on nuclear SNP data, genetic differentiation among the four breeding sections was strongest between the draught horses and the three other sections (FST = 0.007–0.018), whereas based on mitochondrial DNA data, it was strongest between the trotters and the pony-sized and riding horses (ΦST = 0.054–0.068). Conclusions The existence of a Przewalski’s horse haplogroup in the Finnhorse provides new insights into the domestication of the horse, and this finding supports previous suggestions of a close relationship between the Finnhorse and eastern primitive breeds. The high level of mitochondrial DNA variation in the Finnhorse supports its domestication from a large number of mares but also reflects that its founding depended on many local landraces. Although inbreeding in Finnhorses was lower than in many other horse breeds, the small nuclear effective population sizes of each of its breeding sections can be considered as a warning sign, which warrants changes in breeding practices. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12711-019-0480-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Northeastern Siberia has been inhabited by humans for more than 40,000 years but its deep population history remains poorly understood. Here we investigate the late Pleistocene population history of northeastern Siberia through analyses of 34 newly recovered ancient genomes that date to between 31,000 and 600 years ago. We document complex population dynamics during this period, including at least three major migration events: an initial peopling by a previously unknown Palaeolithic population of ‘Ancient North Siberians’ who are distantly related to early West Eurasian hunter-gatherers; the arrival of East Asian-related peoples, which gave rise to ‘Ancient Palaeo-Siberians’ who are closely related to contemporary communities from far-northeastern Siberia (such as the Koryaks), as well as Native Americans; and a Holocene migration of other East Asian-related peoples, who we name ‘Neo-Siberians’, and from whom many contemporary Siberians are descended. Each of these population expansions largely replaced the earlier inhabitants, and ultimately generated the mosaic genetic make-up of contemporary peoples who inhabit a vast area across northern Eurasia and the Americas. Analyses of 34 ancient genomes from northeastern Siberia, dating to between 31,000 and 600 years ago, reveal at least three major migration events in the late Pleistocene population history of the region.

Publication of the rich medieval and early modern bone material excavated in Finnish Lapland over the past decades is long due. Bone assemblages can complete the picture of the life and livelihood of the early Saami societies presented in written sources. The data from three Saami dwelling sites and two market places, which are published here, support in many ways the written information, but show also some discrepancies between these two sources of information. The osteological data may raise more questions than they answer, but serve as an important source material for further research.

Paleodietary research is a complex field, which requires large sets of background information. Owing to increasing interest and activity in the field, a substantial amount of archaeological isotope baseline data exist for Northern Europe, consisting mainly of animal bone collagen δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S values. However, the data are scattered into dozens of publications written in multiple languages and less-accessible formats, making the data laborious to use. This article presents the first compilation work of this data, the open access dIANA database (Dietary Isotopic baseline for the Ancient North; https://www.oasisnorth.org/diana.html), aimed to support (paleo)dietary research in the Baltic Sea area. The database work is complemented with new analyses of archaeological and (pre-)modern domestic and wild fauna from Finland and Russia broadening the selection of analysed species in the database. We present and discuss data examples, which on one hand show existing spatiotemporal isotope patterns related to diet and differences in the environmental carbon sources and on the other, also visualize the current status of baseline research and the need for further analyses in the circum-Baltic area. Paleodietary research is a complex field, which requires large sets of background information. Owing to increasing interest and activity in the field, a substantial amount of archaeological isotope baseline data exist for Northern Europe, consisting mainly of animal bone collagen δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S values. However, the data are scattered into dozens of publications written in multiple languages and less-accessible formats, making the data laborious to use. This article presents the first compilation work of this data, the open access dIANA database (Dietary Isotopic baseline for the Ancient North; https://www.oasisnorth.org/diana.html), aimed to support (paleo)dietary research in the Baltic Sea area. The database work is complemented with new analyses of archaeological and (pre-)modern domestic and wild fauna from Finland and Russia broadening the selection of analysed species in the database. We present and discuss data examples, which on one hand show existing spatiotemporal isotope patterns related to diet and differences in the environmental carbon sources and on the other, also visualize the current status of baseline research and the need for further analyses in the circum-Baltic area.

The effects of bio-adaptation-based visual cues in conveying affective information was studied while conducting social meditation in a virtual reality (VR) environment. In a laboratory study, 22 dyads practiced a short duration, modified version of empathy-evoking compassion meditation. The immersive VR provided electroencephalography (EEG) -based real-time visual feedback, as changing color, on the user's brain activation; the breathing rate of the users was visualized as a movement cue. In addition, the synchronization of the feedback signals between the users was also visualized. Initial results suggest that the perceived affective interdependence, a component of social presence, was increased when both of the bio-adaptive visual feedbacks were presented to the users, compared to when there was no visual feedback. Also, the EEG-based visual feedback led to higher affective interdependence than the respiration based visual feedback. The findings suggest that affective contagion may occur by mediated adaptive cues that are based on physiological signals.

Tubular bone artefacts of different size and form are commonly found in the Middle Neolithic inhumation burials in Gotland and Öland, Sweden. These burials were made by the people of the so-called Scandinavian Pitted Ware Culture. Small tubular artefacts have commonly been interpreted as beads used in decoration as they, in many cases, appear in clusters at the head region and along the body. In 1998 at Ajvide, archaeologists discovered a grave (62), which contained a large number of grave goods, among them tubular bone artefacts of an extraordinary character. Based on their outlook, these single or two-pieced artefacts with or without pierced holes were interpreted as flutes. Their suitability for sound production, however, has never been studied systematically. In this article, we will discuss the presence and function of the different tubular bone artefacts found in grave 62. We will describe the finds, sort them tentatively and report possible ethnographical parallels. The article is intended as an introduction to the research project, which seeks to analyze the organological structures of the artefacts and reassess their interpretation as musical instruments. The find contexts of the artefacts, as well as, the grave entity with all other artefacts, will be studied from the perspective of music archaeology.