Northern Europe, 09 FINLAND (E): Pre-Roman Iron Age (500 BC-AD 09)

The Pre-Roman Iron Age was marked by the adoption of iron working and agriculture. While bronze had to be imported into Finland, low-grade iron ore was available locally from bogs and lakes, which were smelted for use. Agriculture became the dominant economic activity in southern and western Finland, surpassing hunting and gathering as the major economic activity in the south and west, while also becoming more significant in the interior.

Evidence points to a slow but steady population increase concentrated in the southern and southwestern parts of the country, which were the most fertile, accessible and settled regions. This growth was likely limited by factors common to that era, including a short life expectancy at birth, which is supported by archaeological findings.

Burial traditions were influenced by migration and regional differences, inhumation and cremation pit burials became prominent in coastal areas, while inhumation with grave goods like pottery, axes, and beads was also practiced. In the interior, burial practices often involved cremation, stone settings, and low cairns, with finds sometimes indicative of hunting and fur trading.

Roman authors Cornelius Tacitus (c.64; c.56/57-c.120) in his Germania (c.98 AD) and Jordanes in his Getica (551 AD) provide vague, external mentions of the Fenni or Finni people, which likely refer to the Sámi or other inhabitants of northern Europe and not necessarily the ancestors of modern Finns.

Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sami/Sámi/Saami people, is a cultural region extending across the northern parts of four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola Peninsula, and is mostly within the Arctic Circle.

The precise origins and routes of the Sámi people remain contentious. However, archaeological discoveries indicate the Sámi, or their direct descendants, have occupied their present-day area of settlement for at least 10,000 years, although two thousand years ago the Sámi occupied a more considerable area to the south than their primary settlement areas today.The first written accounts of life in the far north date from the late 9th century. Ohthere of Hålogaland, a Norwegian seafarer, gives details of his expeditions along the Arctic coast and around the Kola Peninsula, but also gives details of his trade with the Sámi from whom he collected taxes in the form of skins, feathers and walrus teeth (tusks). This account was incorporated into an Old English version (10th Century) of Orosius’s History against the Pagans (416-417 AD).