A Touch of Red : Archaeological and Ethnographic Approaches to Interpreting Finnish Rock Paintings

Approximately 125 prehistoric rock paintings have been found in the modern territory of Finland. The paintings were done with red ochre and are almost without exception located on steep lakeshore cliffs associated with ancient water routes. Most of the sites are found in the central and eastern parts of the country, especially on the shores of Lakes Päijänne and Saimaa. Using shore displacement chronology, the art has been dated to ca. 5000 – 1500 BC. It was thus created mainly during the Stone Age and can be associated with the so-called ‘Comb Ware’ cultures of the Subneolithic period. The range of motifs is rather limited, consisting mainly of schematic depictions of stick-figure humans, elks, boats, handprints and geometric signs. Few paintings include any evidence of narrative scenes, making their interpretation a rather difficult task. In Finnish archaeological literature, the paintings have traditionally been associated with ’sympathetic’ hunting magic, or the belief that the ritual shooting of the painted animals would increase hunting luck. Some writers have also suggested totemistic and shamanistic readings of the art. This dissertation is a critical review of the interpretations offered of Finnish rock art and an exploration of the potentials of archaeological and ethnographic research in increasing our knowledge of its meaning. Methods used include ’formal’ approaches such as archaeological excavation, landscape analysis and the application of neuropsychological research to the study of rock art, as well as ethnographically ’informed’ approaches that make use of Saami and Baltic Finnish ethnohistorical sources in interpretation. In conclusion, it is argued that although North European hunter-gatherer rock art is often thought to lie beyond the reach of ‘informed’ knowledge, the exceptional continuity of prehistoric settlement in Finland validates the informed approach in the interpretation of Finnish rock paintings. The art can be confidently associated with shamanism of the kind still practiced by the Saami of Northern Fennoscandia in the historical period. Evidence of similar shamanistic practices, concepts and cosmology are also found in traditional Finnish-Karelian epic poetry. Previous readings of the art based on ‘hunting magic’ and totemism are rejected. Most of the paintings appear to depict experiences of falling into a trance, of shamanic metamorphosis and trance journeys, and of ‘spirit helper’ beings comparable to those employed by the Saami shaman (noaidi). As demonstrated by the results of an excavation at the rock painting of Valkeisaari, the painted cliffs themselves find a close parallel in the Saami cult of the 'sieidi', or sacred cliffs and boulders worshipped as expressing a supernatural power. Like the Saami, the prehistoric inhabitants of the Finnish Lake Region seem to have believed that certain cliffs were ’alive’ and inhabited by the spirit helpers of the shaman. The rock paintings can thus be associated with shamanic vision quests, and the making of ‘art’ with an effort to socialize the other members of the community, especially the ritual specialists, with trance visions. However, the paintings were not merely to be looked at. The red ochre handprints pressed on images of elks, as well as the fact that many paintings appear ’smeared’, indicate that they were also to be touched – perhaps in order to tap into the supernatural potency inherent in the cliff and in the paintings of spirit animals.

Water in Action : Encounters among 2- to 3-Year-Old Children, Adults, and Water in Day Care

In line with cultural psychology and developmental theory, a single case approach is applied to construct knowledge on how children s interaction emerge interlinked to historical, social, cultural, and material context. The study focuses on the negotiation of constraints and meaning construction among 2-to 3-year-old children, a preschool teacher, and the researcher in settings with water. Water as an element offers a special case of cultural canalization: adults selectively monitor and guide children s access to it. The work follows the socio-cultural tradition in psychology, particularly the co-constructivist theory of human development and the Network of Meanings perspective developed at the University of São Paulo. Valsiner s concepts of Zone of Free Movement and Zone of Promoted Action are applied together with studies where interactions are seen as spaces of construction where negotiation of constraints for actions, emotions, and conceptions occur. The corpus was derived at a Finnish municipal day care centre. During a seven months period, children s actions were video recorded in small groups twice a month. The teacher and the researcher were present. Four sessions with two children were chosen for qualitative microanalysis; the analysis also addressed the transformations during the months covered by the study. Moreover, the data derivation was analyzed reflectively. The narrowed down arenas for actions were continuously negotiated among the participants both nonverbally and verbally. The adults expectations and intentions were materialized in the arrangements of the setting canalizing the possibilities for actions. Children s co-regulated actions emerged in relation to the adults presence, re-structuring attempts, and the constraints of the setting. Children co-constructed novel movements and meanings in relation to the initiatives and objects offered. Gestures, postures, and verbalizations emerged from the initially random movements and became constructed to have specific meanings and functions; meaning construction became abbreviated. The participants attempted to make sense of the ambiguous (explicit and implicit) intentions and fuzzy boundaries of promoted and possible actions: individualized yet overlapping features were continuously negotiated by all the participants. Throughout the months, children s actions increasingly corresponded adults (re-defined) conceptions of water researchers as an emerging group culture. Water became an instrument and a context for co-regulations. The study contributes to discussions on children as participants in cultural canalization and emphasizes the need for analysis in early childhood education practices on the implicit and explicit constraint structures for actions.