The Baltic

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE VIKING AGE IN FINLAND

Torsten Edgren

THE SETTLEMENT

D

uring the Viking Age (ad 800 – 1050 ) the settlement of present-day Finland
underwent a number of changes. While the number of western Finnish cemeteries
and consequently also of farms and villages increased in the old core settlement areas of
Finland Proper, Satakunta, and Häme, the settled population was also expanding into
areas that had formerly been sparsely inhabited. A number of new cemeteries appeared
in the inner coastal zone while former population centres shrank. In the province of
Finland Proper, the expansion can nevertheless only be termed moderate, since the
borders of the settled area did not change radically. Individual settlements, which were
primarily concentrated in the river valleys and heads of inlets with their farmable land,
were isolated pockets surrounded by uninhabited forests. The distances between the
river valleys were not great and contacts occurred naturally, but both trade and sub-
sistence considerations would have directed the inhabitants’ interests towards the sea
while the river valleys were first-class conduits to the inland with its boundless hunting
grounds. A parish church was raised in each of these settlements during the early Middle
Ages, and they developed into local administrative centres. The medieval churches were
often built on or next to the pre-Christian cemeteries. The foundations for the medieval
parishes may thus have been laid already in the Viking Age.
In the province of Häme (Tavastia), on the other hand, settlement expanded beyond
the borders of the old core area and the first cemeteries appear in several districts outside
the actual core cluster located around the lake region of southern Häme. Archaeological
remains are also found in the province’s eastern part and they also include female burials
with a full range of western Finnish jewellery. As a rule, however, finds that originate
from outside the core settlements come from male graves, apparently those of trappers.
During previous periods, signs of habitation were almost totally absent from the
archipelago off the coast of Finland Proper. Now, however, these appear as well. The
most important site is a harbour and trading centre located on the northern side of
the narrow sound of Kyrksundet on the island of Hiittinen in the south-western Finnish
archipelago, which lies right on the Eastern Route of the Vikings. Up to now no
remnants of houses have been found, only some remains of a workshop with many finds,