Jari Okkonen & Janne Ikäheimo: On the archaelogical remains of Linnakangas in Kannus and Hiidenlinna in Himanka

The article contains descriptions and topographical analyse of two prehistoric sites with remarkable variety of stone structures located in Central-Ostrobotnia, i.e Linnakangas in Kannus and Hiidenlinna in Himanka. Remains of this kind usually classified as uncertain prehistoric burial mounds, datable to the Bronze or Iron Age, athough most of them are located geologically at the Stoone Age attitude level as deduced from modern land uplift aculations. All the remains were categorized by a shape-critical procedure, the terminology for which has partly been adapted from Swedish scholars.

The total number of remains at linnakangas in kannus was seven, six of which were constructed in a boulder-stone deposit. Two of the stone constructions were interpreted as hut bottoms and another two as stroage and conservation pits, while the function of the others remained quite obscure. Another hut bottom, found about 50 metres away from the main site, was an oval hollow in a podsolized soil and it resempled with hut bottoms of the Madeneva type known from the Stone Age. After examing topographical elements and finds made by the authors and previous researchers (including a stone chisel and some quartz flakes), it is guite certain that this site was used as a temporary dwelling place for a coastal hunting and fishing population during the 3rd millennium B.C., which in relative terms means the late Stone Age.

Altogether twenty-seven structures were recorded at Hiidenlinna in Himanka. Basically, the Hiidenlinna site has the same functional combination of stone formation types (including a separate hut bottom) as at Linnakangas, but a significant difference can be noted concerning these two sites.

The largest stone feature at Hiidenlinna, which encircled nearly all the other formations, has to be classified as giant church. This large, oval stone wall must be interpreted as man-made, because of its regular shape and differences in height between the parts. Bearing this mind the whole archaeological complex seems to indicatethat such sites were used as temporarybases for coastal food gathering. Hiidenlinna (3200-2200 B.C.) appears to be roughly contemporary with the Linnakangas site.

Various combinations of stone features are common at the "cairn sites" known so far in Central and nborthern Ostrobothnia, including types which cannot be related to Bronze or Iron Age burials. Because of the burial oriented stone mound research tradition in Finland, archaeological sites like those presented above have frequently been ignored or misinterpreted. The article attemps to draw attention to the other uses of such sites.

Faravid 16/1992