inhabited Iron Age villages. Besides the bow and arrow, hunters used various kinds of
traps, pitfalls and snares as well as other passive devices. The most important game
animals were the beaver, the moose, the wolf, the lynx and the brown bear. The arrows
often had a transverse cutting edge, the points being shaped like chisels or two-pronged
forks. Both types are of eastern origin and appear mainly in central and northern
Finland.
As the market for furs grew and the hunting grounds near the villages were depleted,
hunting trips became longer and longer. The hunting grounds were now frontier
wilderness areas hundreds of miles from the core villages. Hunting trips were made at
certain times of the year and to particular areas that came to be considered the common
property of individual farms or villages. The foundation of the Finnish ‘frontier usufruct
institution’, whereby villages owned land-use rights and even taxation rights in large
tracts of outback country primarily in the east and north, was laid during the closing
phase of the Iron Age. Hunting voyages to these distant hunting grounds were under-
taken by the village’s whole male population, and winter – especially late winter – was
the main season for these trips. The frontier usufruct economy that had originally
developed to supply domestic needs became increasingly commercial and large-scale.
In addition to hunting, fishing also played an important role in the economy. In the
inland zone, fishing was mainly carried out by individual households for their own
needs. On the coast, on the other hand, it was a cooperative enterprise involving several
people. To what degree the Iron Age communities practised true deep-water fishing is
beyond our knowledge. The settlements obviously lay in the coastal zone, but there is no
archaeological evidence of large-scale fishing on the open sea. These activities belong in
the Middle Ages, when the consumption of fish rose steeply in western Europe.
BIBLIOGRAPHYAppelgren-Kivalo, H. ( 1907 ) Suomalaisia pukuja myöhemmältä rautakaudelta – Finnische Trachten
aus der jüngeren Eisenzeit, Helsinki: no publ.
Cleve, N. ( 1929 ) ‘Jüngereisenzeitliche Funde von der Insel Berezan’, Eurasia Septentrionalis
Antiqua, 4 : 250 – 62.
——( 1978 ) Skelettgravfälten på Kjuloholm i Kjulo, vol. 2 : Vikingatid och korstågstid (SMYA–FFT
44 : 2 ), Helsingfors: Finska fornminnesföreningen.
Edgren, T. ( 1968 ) ‘Zu einem Fund von Gussformen aus der jüngeren Eisenzeit in Finnland’,
Suomen Museo ( 1968 ): 37 – 51.
——( 1992 ) ‘Den förhistoriska tiden’, in T. Edgren and L. Törnblom, Finlands historia, vol. 1 ,
Esbo: Schildt.
——( 1995 a) ‘“... De Aspø usque Ørsund.vi.Inde usque Hangethe.iij.. .” An archaeological
research project concerning one of the harbours in Finland’s south-western archipelago
referred to in “the Danish itinerary”’, in O. Olsen, J. Skamby and F. Rieck (eds) Shipshape.
Essays for Ole Crumlin-Pedersen. On the occasion of his 60 th anniversary February 24 1995 ,
Roskilde: Viking Ship Museum.
——( 2000 ) ‘The Eastern Route: Finland in the Viking Age’, in W.W. Fitzhugh and E.I. Ward
(eds) Vikings. The North Atlantic Saga, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Inst. Press.
——( 2005 ) ‘Kyrksundet in Hitis, SW Finland: a Viking Age resting place and trading post on
the sailing route to the east’, in A. Mortensen and S.V. Arge (eds) Viking and Norse in the North
Atlantic. Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Viking Congress, Tórshavn, 19 – 30 July
2001 , Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.
–– Torsten Edgren––