Theme:
5. (Extreme) Environments – Islands, Coasts, Margins, Centres
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Snow- and Icescapes: Archaeological and Conceptual Explorations of Frozen Worlds
Content:
Any northerner is familiar with the transformative power of snow and ice that are literally creating different geographies in northern landscapes. There are even seasonal geographical features such as sea ice ridges forming every winter, sometimes given local place names of their own. Snow, ice and cold are part of a physical reality that has defined both personal and cultural identity of northerners as well as the identity of places. Yet the possibilities of the winter landscape remain largely unexplored in archaeological research.
Today, snow often creates chaos in transportation, frustrating rail commuters and travellers, and frozen waters are perceived to be void of motion hindering the movement of ships and the materials they contain. Historically, however, the northern winter roads on ice and snow were of utmost importance and freezing of the ground awaited. Compared to summer, long northern winters made it possible to utilize shorter networks through faster winter roads. Military campaigns in winter have been constitutive elements in the history of several Nordic regions. Frost-nails, mounts for shoes and horseshoes to protect from slipping on ice are the strongest and most frequent archaeological evidence associated with winter, snow, and ice. Archaeologists are also increasingly discovering skis, skates, sledges, and sleighs as well as remains of winter hay barns and trapping systems. Researchers are becoming more alert to archaeological signatures of day-to-day life in snowy landscapes.
Far from isolating, the frozen landscape provides ice roads and snowy transport routes, lays the ground for sociability, winter fairs and markets, facilitates lumbering, hunting, and trapping, and even war. It connects islands with the mainland, but also forces ships to shore. In the far north, winter commands darkness and demands light. In this session we invite expeditions into the northern winter landscape, both physical and conceptual.
Keywords:
Northern archaeology, Winter, Landscape, Periphery, Human-environment interactions, Ice
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Kristin Ilves (Finland) 1
Co-organisers:
Charlotta Hillerdal (United Kingdom) 2
Affiliations:
1. University of Helsinki
2. University of Aberdeen
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