Archaeologists have found a mysterious prehistoric site, believed to be a 6,500-year-old Stone Age cemetery, near the Arctic Circle [Maritime Archaic]

Arkeonews ^ | December 4, 2023 | Leman Altuntas

[SunkenCiv]

The prehistoric site is known as Tainiaro, located about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle in the Finnish region of Lapland...

Back in 1959, local workers came across stone tools in Simo, which is situated near the Baltic Sea's northern edge, just 80 kilometers to the south of the Arctic Circle. The site, named Tainiaro, underwent partial excavations in the 80s. This led to the revelation of thousands of artifacts, including pottery, stone tools, and animal bones.

The archaeologists were also able to notice 127 possible pits of different sizes that could have been sediment-filled. Some had burning evidence, while others had red ochre traces. Red ochre is a natural iron pigment that is crucial to several burials of the Stone Age. However, without skeletal evidence, which quickly decayed in the acidic soil of this region, the Taniaro's identification as a cemetery was never confirmed...

Archaeologists were initially unsure whether the pits were graves, hearths, or a combination of the two. To determine the nature, the team examined the contents and sizes of the pits and compared them to hundreds of Stone Age graves in 14 cemeteries. The archaeologists were then able to determine that at least 44 of these could have housed human burials. Furthermore, the pits' rounded-edge rectangular shape, red ochre traces, and occasional artifacts suggest that they were graves...

While elsewhere it would have been possible to find human remains in these pits, which would have confirmed the Stone Age cemetery hypothesis, the soil in Finland is so acidic that nothing organic buried in the ground could survive for more than a thousand years.

[SunkenCiv]

The pits discovered in previous excavation.

Image: Antiquity

[SunkenCiv]

This one should turn into a troll fest, could be fun.

[Red Badger]

>...the soil in Finland is so acidic that nothing organic buried in the ground could survive for more than a thousand years.

Just like Florida's soils................

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Global warming worked for them I guess.

[SunkenCiv]

Stone Age Warming Period. :^)

[coalminersson]

chariot exhaust

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Their windmills broke.

[AdmSmith]

A large fifth-millennium BC cemetery in the subarctic north of the Baltic Sea?

Figure 1. A) elevation map of northern Europe. Tainiaro is marked as a star near the Arctic Circle; B) the topography of the environs of Tainiaro (and Tainilanrotko) along the Simojoki River, with the sea level set at 76m above current level, representing the ancient shoreline of c. 5000 BC (elevation model 2m resolution by the National Land Survey of Finland, NLSF) (figure by Aki Hakonen).

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/large-fifthmillennium-bc-cemetery-in-the-subarctic-north-of-the-baltic-sea/42223CBE5EB7F6157FE0DF100078C3F3

Note the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectonic_uplift since that time.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[Varda]

While I think people from the Maritime Archaic probably crossed the ocean and landed in Scandinavia, I think the use of red ochre is too common to be strong evidence. But it's interesting, so we can add this find to others such this genetic anomoly (Y chromosome haplogroup Q-L804) which diverged from it's closest clade in about the same time frame as this cemetary.

[nitzy]

Do you know where Q-M1107 and Q-M930 were located?

All of the other boxes have locations associated with them.

[Varda]

Here's a different paper which looks like it has Q-M930 isolated at a point where all it's daughter clades are in the New World (except L804) That suggests Berengia or very far west Asia. link
I'll have took look up Q-M1107, that previous image came from a scandinavian site.

[nitzy]

Thanks!

[Varda]

Well I got that backwards. It should be very far EAST Asia.

[gleeaikin]

This week Public TV had an interesting report of about the same age on houaing and buriels in northern Britain that was very interesting. Since the bodies were laid in stone vaults there were skeletal remains even though over 6,000 years old. Orkney Islands (?) if I remember correctly.

[AdmSmith]

Archaeologists say they have uncovered the ruins of an “incredibly rare” 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney. The Neolithic site at Holm, East Mainland, was largely destroyed by Victorian antiquarians 127 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-67195563

Re-discovering a Lost Neolithic Tomb in 2023
By Hugo Anderson-Whymark of the National Museum of Scotland
Last years discovery of a Neolitic tomb in Orkney with several skeletons in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIUYajvT1Fo

1 h video presentation