Osteological material from the Stone Age and Early Metal Period sites in Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia
Abstract
Subfossil refuse fauna has been collected from the Stone Age and Early Metal Period sites in Ceded Karelia ever since the early 20th century. In this article all the faunal assemblages analysed up to 2004 from the area are presented. Most of the presented assemblages derive from the excavations carried out during the first decades of the 20th century, and the fact that the early excavators often concentrated on collecting the biggest and best preserved bone fragments brings bias to the data. Only four of the analyzed sites have been excavated in the 21st century, but already these show the influence of the different excavation methods used almost hundred years apart. The recently excavated assemblages are more often dominated by small bone fragments like fish bones. Seal remains dominate most of the analyzed assemblages both on the shores of the Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland, and only a few sites differ from this picture.
