Summary:
Matti Leiviskä – Esa Haataja, The Lohipuro trapping pit area in the Pyhäntä municipality
The Lohipuro trapping pit area lies in the Tavastkenkä village of the Pyhäntä municipality at a crossing point of the provincial borders of Northern Ostrobothnia, Savo and Kainuu close to the upper course of the river Siikajoki. An inventory of the archeological remains of the site was first taken in 1996 by Mika Sarkkinen, a Finnish archaeologist. This article is based on an inventory we conducted in spring 2009 to carry out an in-depth investigation in the location and characteristics of the pit remains of the area. A further aim of the study was to compare our findings with existing knowledge of other trapping-pit systems.
Pit trapping of animals has been practiced all over the world since the Stone Age. In Finland, the method has been used mostly for the hunting of elks and big pit systems have been primarily used for the mass capture of mountain reindeer and Finnish forest reindeer and (Rangifer tarandus tarandus and Rangifer tarandus fennicus ). The pit systems used to be located at the bottle necks of the migration routes of the deer, e.g., at narrow ridges bordering on watercourses. The location of the pits was based on the knowledge that the herds use the same routes from year to year and for hundreds of years to migrate between the winter and summer pastures.
When taking our inventory we found a total of 93 pit remains within a distance of three kilometres. The podsol soil that was clearly observable in the drilling samples demonstrates that the pits are very old, probably prehistoric. The pits are of rounded shape, approximately four meters in diameter and from a half to a little above one meter in depth. Their size suggests that they have most likely been used for reindeer capturing. On the northwestern side of the pit area there are extensive open swamps suitable for the summer biotopes of reindeer while the southeastern side presents large frozen lakes and lichen woodland for winter pasturing. The location of the Lohipuro trapping pits between those two pasturing areas on a ridge that provides a good migration route is a feature typical of the trapping-pit system.
According to current research knowledge, the mass capture of reindeer with large trapping-pit systems is associated with the hunting culture of the Forest Sami people. Since the Lohipuro archeological remains are identifiable as such a trapping system, it can be presumed that Forest Sami people must have been living in the surrounding area. This conclusion is not in conflict with current knowledge of the settlement history of the area. However, in the absence of adequate research, the settlement cannot be more closely dated or geographically located. Still, one possibility would be to study the question in the context of the prehistoric settlement remains found, e.g., in Sainijärvi, Kivijärvi, and Pyhännänjärvi, whose dating is currently unclear.
