Archaeologists’ most exciting finds: The stone circles were not made for sacrifices to the gods. They were traces of children at play
"Forget the burial cairns and burial mounds. Children’s cultural heritage is just as important," says archaeologist.
“This is what I want to bring attention to,” says Sámi Parliament archaeologist Arne Håkon Thomassen. Mánaj kulturmujto – children’s cultural heritage.(Photo: Arne Håkon Thomassen)
Summer is peak season for archaeological excavations, and this is when many significant discoveries are made.
Sometimes, years of planning and digging are required before something spectacular is uncovered; other times, they stumble upon treasures by sheer chance. Both types of discoveries are invaluable for our understanding of the past.
In the mountains and other high-altitude areas, you can often come across circles made of stone, says Arne Håkon Thomassen.
Why did people make so many of these stone circles, hundreds or thousands of years ago?
“There's a kind of reflex that often kicks in: we put everything we don't understand into a box and say that perhaps it had some religious purpose,” says Thomassen, an archaeologist at the Sámi Parliament.
The stone circles are often registered as sacrificial circles, even though no one really knows exactly what all of them represent.
But according to Thomassen, there is no reason to assume that all these stone circles had anything to do with religion.
In 2009, Thomassen was carrying out archaeological survey work in Rago National Park in northern Norway.
Over the course of 12 days, he visited around 30 cultural heritage sites.
As is typical in this kind of mountain landscape, he found hearths and tent sites. But there were also lots of these stone circles.
They had not, however, been built for making offerings to the gods. The stone structures were fences and enclosures. And they had been made by children.
“These were imitations of the adults’ work with reindeer herding,” explains Thomassen. "They were incredibly fascinating constructions."
Some of the fences were so elaborate that it was possible to see how the enclosures were designed to separate females, males, and calves. Small pieces of quartz or rock crystal inside the ‘fences’ represented reindeer calves, cows, and bulls.
"I get tears in my eyes talking about this. These constructions have been lying here for who knows how many years, until an archaeologist comes along and records them," he says.
More than half of the cultural heritage remains Thomassen recorded in Rago had been created by children.
The stone rings turned out to be imitations of the adults’ reindeer herding activities. The most complex constructions were divided into sections, like the one in this photograph.(Photo: Arne Håkon Thomassen)
A well-known tradition
Thomassen had a representative from the local reindeer herding district with him during the survey. They were aware that the area contained large numbers of cultural heritage remains created by children, and they were concerned that hikers might destroy them.
The reason they knew the circles were traces of children’s play rather than evidence of the adults’ religious practices was simple: it was a tradition they knew of.
"Their ancestors had also made these kinds of imitations of what the adults were doing," Thomassen explains.
Annonse
The local representative who accompanied Thomassen even showed him the place where his great-grandfather had made circles like these when he was a child.
There is too little diversity in the archaeological material we use to build our compelling stories about the past, says archaeologist Arne Håkon Thomassen.(Photo: Private)
From playing at reindeer herding to becoming a reindeer herder
Play allows children to gain social experience through interacting with others and helps them understand themselves and the world around them, according to the archaeologist.
But it is also a way of practising how to be an adult.
"In traditional reindeer herding, greater emphasis is placed on a more indirect form of child-rearing, involving guidance and steering the child in the right direction. Children’s play is important in that context, and the transition between playing and being an adult becomes almost imperceptible," he says.
Thomassen also initially thought of religion when he saw the stone circles.
"When you see a stone circle like that, it’s natural to assume there must be something religious about it. So I was a little taken aback. It was an eye-opener for me to see how important this traditional Sámi approach to raising children was within reindeer husbandry," he says.
Could be several hundred years old
Thomassen does not know exactly how old these traces left by the children’s play are. But the area has been used by reindeer herders for several hundred years.
Today, the area is mainly used during the winter, but the children played there in the summer. This means that the stone rings were made by people who used the area for reindeer herding during the summer months.
"This is the major point of contention among archaeologists working on this today. When did domesticated reindeer herding begin?" says Thomassen.
The stone circles could date from the 18th century. Or they could be from the Middle Ages. Or they could be even older.
Researchers could investigate them to determine their age, for example by looking at moss and lichen growth. But that's expensive, according to Thomassen.
"I wonder how many thousands of these examples of children’s cultural heritage have been registered as sacrificial rings, for instance, when no one actually had any idea what they might really have been," says Thomassen.(Photo: Arne Håkon Thomassen)
Thomassen believes that archaeologists don't always need to be so preoccupied with the grand and the spectacular. It's enough to look at a stone ring lying on a rocky outcrop.(Photo: Arne Håkon Thomassen)
Too much masculine nonsene
The archaeologist from the Sámi Parliament thinks it is high time that children’s cultural heritage received more attention within archaeology.
"There's so much masculine rubbish. Vikings and all that nonsense," he says. "No disrespect to those who work on the grand and spectacular things, but it becomes too macho for my taste. I get tired of all the masculinity that gets emphasised when we talk about the Iron Age and similar periods."
Archaeologists are often taught which types of cultural heritage carry the most weight. According to Thomassen, the emphasis tends to fall on the monumental, the grand, and the spectacular. He completed his postgraduate degree in Tromsø in the 1990s and found the discipline restrictive.
"You didn't have to stray very far from the established path before people started seeing you as a weirdo. But perhaps more weirdos are exactly what Norwegian archaeology needs," says Thomassen, adding:
"Forget the burial cairns and burial mounds; take an interest in children’s cultural heritage! That's my greatest wish."
