Eight thousand years ago, tragedy struck a Stone Age community living in what is now Majoonsuo in Finland – the death of a beloved child. Analyzing their grave reveals that the child was buried in a lavish and grand manner. It contained feathers, fur and rare plant fibers.
These samples represent the first time that fur and feathers have been found in a Mesolithic Finnish burial. This gives us new information about the funerary rituals performed in this area, which dates back thousands of years.
This research also shows how we can preserve fragments of organic material in grave dirt so that we can find them later on, if they are available.
“The technique used shows that even graves thousands of years older than they were in the past, traces of fur or feathers can still be found, including in Finland,” says archaeologist Kristiina MannermaaFinnish University of Helsinki
It is somewhat like trying to piece together a puzzle without all the pieces. Understanding cultures from centuries past is difficult. Only artifacts can survive the ravages and often don’t have much organic material. This is especially true for Finland, where acidity in soils can further reduce the quality of such material.
New research by Tuija Kirkinen (University of Helsinki archaeologist) shows that soil can retain trace amounts of organic grave goods for up to thousands of years.
The grave was discovered under an unsealed road in a wooded area. It was first identified by a bright slash of red oxide against the pale gravel road. This was the first sign that an ancient burial had been found: iron rich soil, which was used in rituals and artistically at many locations throughout prehistory. Before the site could be damaged, an archaeologist team was called to rush in.
The objects found were very few. The bones had long ago decayed and left only a few teeth of a child less than 10 years old. The team was able to date the grave using two quartz arrowheads as well as two other objects.
However, the soil found in the grave was almost entirely the same soil that had been used to inter the child. This opens up another avenue for research: soil analysis.
The water was used to remove any organic material from the soil. They then used various microscopy techniques in order to identify and study what they discovered.
It is amazing to see the results. These fibers were bast fibers made from the inner bark certain plants such as willow or stinging nettle. These are preserved very poorly in Finnish soil; only one other Finnish bast fiber discovery has been made dating to the Stone Age – the Antrea Net.
There are only microscopic fragments left, so it is difficult to know what the bast fibres in Majoonsuo were. They could have been part of a cord, net or string.
It was also possible to find animal material: 24 microscopic pieces of bird feathers.
These are, according to the researchers, the oldest feathers ever discovered in Finland. Seven fragments came from the down of waterfowl (which includes ducks, geese, and swans). This could have come from a garment like a parka, which would have been filled up with down to keep the child warm, or from grave bedding that was used for his burial.
Another fragment of feather was identified as belonging a falcon. It could have been part of the fletching that was done on the arrows in the grave; or maybe falcon feathers were used as decorations for the child’s clothes.
The grave contained 24 fragments of mammalian human hairs. Most of these were too decayed to identify. The team discovered that three of the hairs found at the grave’s foot-end were either from a dog or from a wolf. Researchers speculate that these could be the result of a dog who was buried alongside the child, or perhaps as a companion for afterlife.
“Dogs that were buried with their deceased relatives have been discovered in Skateholm in southern Sweden, which is a well-known burial site dating back to around 7,000 years.” Mannermaa explains.
However, the absence of animal teeth suggests that it’s more likely that the fur formed part of the child’s burial garb – rich boots of wolfskin, perhaps.
The details may seem sparse, but the study provides a lot more information about the burial than we could have guessed, even if there are only a few micro-traces of material. It would therefore, the researchers say, be potentially beneficial to apply such soil analysis to all burial excavations, even – or especially – those with poor preservation of organic materials.
“This provides us with a valuable insight into burial practices in the Stone Age.” Kirkinen says“indicating how people had prepared the children for the journey after death.”
The research has been published in PLOS ONE.
