The Astuvansalmi Rock Paintings

 The Astuvansalmi Rock Paintings are a collection of 65 paintings around Ristiina, Finland that date back to around 3000 - 2500 BC. They were "discovered" in 1968, though the locals of Ristiina knew of their existence long before that. The collection is the largest one of its kind in all of Scandinavia. Today it is widely believed that they were the work of a people who practiced shamanism, a set of religious beliefs based on magical and otherworldly principles. The Shaman believers of this age in Scandinavia believed that the sun was reindeer that danced across the sky. As such the hunter-gatherers would follow it throughout the day. The paintings reflect this practice I guess. They are paintings of Elk, people, hunters following the Elk and boats as well as various abstract objects. Here are few samples of their work.

 (That hand print below is likely what inspired today's preschool turkey art movement)

Ten bucks says I'll get more clicks on this Neolithic post than any other

Modern Descendants of the Uralic Language groups mentioned
at the bottom. This is a blatant attempt at a bait-and-switch
marketing scheme.

For the ten-thirteen podcast listeners eagerly awaiting the next installment of the The History of Europe podcast allow me to ensure you that the Neolithic part one podcast will be coming soon. I had planned on recording it today and sending it out, but there is a party beneath my apartment and I can't get good quality sound at the moment. I'll try again tomorrow, but plan on getting both parts of the Neolithic podcast within the week. As I am unable to release a podcast today, I plan on unleashing a slew of prehistoric cultures that didn't make the cut onto the blog. Here is one such unleashed item (actually its two rolled into one)

The Pitted-Ware Culture and the Comb Ceramic Culture were precursors to the Chalcolithic Corded Ware Culture. This culture will get a whole lotta love on the Chalcolithic podcast, which may or may not be a multi-part podcast. But, for now we'll focus on the Neolithic Pitted-Ware and Comb Ceramic cultures that preceded it.

Pitted-Ware Sculpture example

The Pitted-Ware Culture lasted from roughly 3200 BC - 2300 BC in areas of Northeast Denmark, Southern Norway, Sweden and on the Åland Islands, a Swedish archipelago under the rule of the Finnish government. The culture is named "Pitted-Ware" because the pottery that they created had horizontal rows of pits or circles pressed into the pottery. Other than that this widespread Scandinavian Neolithic culture was tied together by their use of nets and propensity for hunting marine animals like seals, whales and porpoises. They used basically the same structure of tools, though their composition varied on what materials were readily available. 

The Comb Ceramic Culture was a bit more far-flung than the Pitted-Ware Culture. It stretched across the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway and the islands of around these countries down into the Baltic Region of Poland and other Baltic states. The Narva Culture of Estonia was under the umbrella of this overarching culture status. We talked about the Narva in the Neolithic podcasts. It was a bit older than the Pitted-Ware culture and lasted a bit longer, ranging from around 4200 BC - 2000 BC before being taken over by the Corded Ware culture we'll spend some time on in the Chalcolithic podcast. 

This silly looking bike rack is located in Poland as a cultural
nod to the Comb-Ceramic Culture that existed there around
4000 BC. While this modern shaped comb probably wasn't
the exact prototype to the Comb Ceramic Culture, it was a
comb similar to this (on a smaller scale) that was used to
create the distinctive markings on this culture's pottery.

Like the Pitted-Ware Culture, the Comb Ceramic Culture was a hunter-gather group that made pottery. Its distinctive trait was lines made by what appear to be combs rather than the horizontal pits in the Pitted-Ware Culture. Other than that these two cultures were similar in their economical makeup. When the Comb Ceramic Culture was located near the sea they were maritime. When they were further inland they hunted. But, like the Pitted-Ware Culture they were nomadic and chased down their meals. They traveled around and built semi-nomadic settlements and stayed in oversized teepees. They made stone tools out of the locally abundant slate and quartz. When there was spare time they liked to paint in caves and make figurines. These figurines were similar to the Pitted-Ware culture in construction techniques but often depicted land animals like moose and deer, whereas the Pitted-Ware Culture depicted maritime animals like seals and porpoises in their statuary art.

These two scandinavian cultures get little to no play in the coming Neolithic podcasts, but shouldn't be written off in importance. They served as the basis for the far reaching and influential Corded Ware culture of the Chalcolithic. For this reason they are getting some love here on the blog.

Both the Pitted-Ware and Comb Ceramic culture likely spoke an early version of Uralic languages. Uralic languages have an incredibly large breadth of territory where their modern offshoots are spoken, including parts of Finland and Estonia (Finnic branch), Hungary (Hungarian branch) and places in Norway, Sweden and Finland that speak a local Sami language (Sami branch). There are a number of branches of the Uralic languages in Russia as well, including the Khanty, Mansi, Mari, Mordvinic and Samoyedic languages. In conclusion, the Pitted-Ware and Comb Ceramic Cultures have achieved boss status long after being taken into the wider Corded Ware Culture. But, not everyone has realized this boss status until now..

The Disputable Prehistoric History of Finland, the earliest humans of Finland were Snorks

Neanderthals were the barrel-chested people that roamed Europe before modern human beings showed up on the scene towards the end of the Pleistocene era. The Mousterian Culture was the primary culture of the Neanderthal existence. This Mousterian Culture stretched all over Europe, but generally stayed out of the most northern bits mainly because it was absolutely and unquestionably too cold to live in. Wait. What? Wolf Cave?

Kristinestad Municipality in
Finland.

Wolf Cave is located in Kristinestad, Finland a territory in Finland's southeast more or less. In 1996 the process of digging this cave out a bit more was undertaken so that tourists could come and check the place out. Touring Finland is a fantastic idea. Touring Finnish caves is just a bit of gravy on top of homemade, non-lumpy mash potatoes. Who doesn't enjoy a spelunking vacation? Anyway, the Finnish government began to dig out this cave to raise tourist dollars and stumbled across some funny looking stuff. After further examination an argument broke out. Some experts were amazed at the find, while others were bewildered at their colleagues' amazement.

Those who were amazed decided that the 200 or so artifacts, more than 600 waste items and numerous instances of burnt stones indicate that Neanderthals, who did not, according to most estimates, live in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe, showed that Neanderthals belonging to this Mousterian Culture had been in fact, living in Wolf Cave at around 130,000 BC. This find would completely altar the understanding of Neanderthals and their environment. However, it gets even better.

The site has been excavated over and over again since the initial finds in 96. They've identified 8 archeological layers. Some of the earliest layers have produced (to the amazed, not to the bewildered experts) evidence of Clactonian activity. Did you just read what I said??? CLACTONIAN!! OMG! CLACTONIAN. I had to Google Clactonian when I was reading the article about this archeological site. I hadn't the slightest idea what it was. But, the Clactonian was a culture (much like the Mousterian or any subsequent Early Modern human culture we've covered here and on the podcast), but not one of modern humans or even Neanderthals. The Clactonian Culture was a culture produced by Homo Erectus dating back to 400,000 years ago.

But, as I said, those who were amazed by these findings have found themselves rebuffed by other experts. Some of the arguments against the notion of Wolf Cave being a Mousterian culture site have been put forward by other Scandinavian archeologists, geologists and anthropologists. Let's face it, unless you're Indiana Jones, all archeologists are anthropologists and all anthropologists are archeologists, unless the anthropologist decides to get lazy and never do any actual digging. But, we've wandered off topic. Back to the dissenting views. Basically there is a an anthropological objection, a geological objection and an archeological objection to Wolf Cave showing the earliest humanoid activity in Scandinavia.

The anthropological argument against Wolf Cave's veracity is that the objects found in the cave don't look much like the classic Mousterian evidence found in France, Spain and Germany (where a lot of Neanderthal sites are). This suggests that the culture of Wolf Cave was independent of the Mousterian. The archeological argument against Wolf Cave is that the "artifacts" are not man made and just a natural phenomena of a somewhat coincidental and odd nature. Basically, that might look like an axe, but its just a piece of rock that's been sitting under pressure for a couple million years. Lastly, the geological argument against Wolf Cave is that the cave where all the artifacts was in fact, under water 130,000 years ago meaning that the artifacts found from the layer dating to this period could not have been manmade.

There is however a simple solution. While Wolf Cave has remained controversial and disputable since it was found in 1996, we here at the History of Europe Podcast Blog are about to right the ship. We shall change the disputable to indisputable, the questionable to the unquestioned and the ludicrous to the ridiculous, as in ridiculously good-looking theoretical archeo-anthropological geologism that we will become famous for someday. So here it is:

Neanderthal was shorter and more robust than modern humans, but equally as adaptable. The freezing cold of the Pleistocene era was occasionally interrupted by periods of mild warming in the climate. This warming would lead to a retreat in the glaciers. Thus it was during one of these interglacial periods that a Neanderthal tribe ventured north and settled in a warmer Finnish coastal region. Unfortunately though, the weather turned sour and it got cold again. The Neanderthal tribe barely survived until another warming period occurred, at which point their temporary shelters broke through the ice and they sunk to the bottom of a lake. Miraculously though, they survived this sinking and developed a breathing tube on the top of their head and began to live under water. Children of the 1980's would recognize this Mousterian culture as the Snorks. The Snorks would go on to create all of these artifacts before being canceled for disappointing ratings. But before their cancellation they would create all of these things that would baffle scientists eons later. And that my friends, is how we create theories that make us famous.

BTW, the Snorks were way better than the Smurfs. I saw the Smurfs movie in Spanish, called Los Pitufos. 'Twas una peliícula de porquería! Vive los Snorks!