Description
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.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Northern Exposure
The North and the world
Relationality, spirituality and the richness of reality
Spirituality and magic in the northern world
Knowing the world
Relationality and the northern world
Time, temporality and the longue durée
Defining the North
A brief outline of the Fennoscandian past
The structure of the book
PART I: LAND
Chapter 2: Stone-worlds
A race to the Arctic
The world inside the rock
Crystal cavities and other marvels of the Underworld
Cavities and recent folklore in the North
Early modern northern mining as dreamwork
Disciplining and ordering of the North
Mining and magic
Dreams of Lapland’s gold
The enduring allure of minerals and the Underworld
Chapter 3: Houses, Land and Soil
Dwellings, people and the cosmos in the North
The introduction of the house
Pottery, semi-subterranean houses and cultural transformation
Early pottery, cultivation and place making
Houses and the changing relationship with the underworld
Clay work as a means of restructuring human-environment relations
Living in an inspirited world
The inspirited house
Chapter 4: Forests and Hunting
The forest in northern landscapes and mindscapes
Engaging with trees
Humans and animals in the north
Seducing the prey
Elk-headed staffs – symbols of Stone Age clans?
Sceptres of the shaman?
The Bear – the ‘Golden King of the Forest’
PART II: SEA
Chapter 5: Coastal landscapes and the sea
Living with the sea
The two mediterraneans
Engaging with changing coastal environments
The temporality of Baltic coastal landscapes
Cairns in northern coastal landscapes
Otherworldly islands
Coastal mazes in the North
Chapter 6: Boats and waterways
The mystery object from a Lapland bog
Water and the Otherworld in a northern context
Travelling as a spirit fish
Blue elks and flying boats
Solar boats in razors and rock art
Boats for the dead
Chapter 7: River mouths and central places
The real and mythical rivers
River mouths as liminal spaces and central places
Mythical kingdoms in later prehistory
The ‘trader kingdom’ of the birkarls
Market places
PART III: SKY
Chapter 8: Birds and cosmology
Migratory birds and changing seasons
Birds as persons
Birds as guides and soul-birds
Cranes and dwarfs
Devil’s swans
Solar swans?
Chapter 9: The sun, light and fire
People of the Sun
Amber and Apollo
Worshipping the northern sun
The marriage of fire and earth
Fire and the hearth in northern cultures
Fire and transformation
Strange lights in the Northern Sky
Chapter 10: Epilogue
A world full of life
The North and the South
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