British Ceramics on the Northern European Periphery: Creamware Marketing in Nineteenth-Century Northern Finland

In 1822, a devastating town fire sealed a large ceramic assemblage from a store in the town of Oulu in northern Finland. Excavations of the merchant’s stock recovered over a hundred kilograms of ceramics that was almost entirely composed of undecorated creamware, a ware and decorative type whose popularity had faded significantly by the 1820’s. The assemblage reveals the global complexities in the international ceramics trade in the early nineteenth century, provides insight into some of the mass-produced commodities reaching geographically peripheral markets, underscores distinctive European market influences, and illuminates marketing and social practices that shaped consumption in markets like Oulu.     

Beyond Consumption: Functionality, Artifact Biography, and Early Modernity in a European Periphery

This paper considers the functionality and biographies of artifacts in the context of historical archaeology. It is argued that in order to understand how human life in the recent past unfolded in relation with material culture, artifacts must be recognized to perform various unobvious functions and also be conceived as processes rather than bounded physical objects. The paper begins with a theoretical discussion and then focuses on the post-acquisition life of artifacts and human-artifact relations in the seventeenth-century town of Tornio, northern Finland.     

Becoming Modern: Hybrid Foodways in Early Modern Tornio,Northern Finland

This paper focuses on foodways in a small town in northern Finland between 1621 and 1800 CE. Tornio was founded in 1621in northern Finland, at that time a part of the Swedish kingdom. Tornio was a dynamic town where people of different ethnic origins came together, forming a new urban community and new urban foodways. Archaeological remains of the town’s foodways—animal remains, macrofossils, and ceramics—suggest that the food culture of Tornio was a hybrid of local indigenous and rural traditions and international fashions. The foodways underwent significant changes in the 18th century. The changes were related to modernization and changing human-environmental relationships.     

Distinguishing nonhuman predation on birds: pattern of damage done by the white-tailed eagle Haliaetus albicilla, with comments on the punctures made by the golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos

The study presents criteria to distinguish some of the nonhuman predation on birds whose remains may also be found at archaeological sites. Specifically, it deals with fragmentation patterns of bird bones in uneaten food remains of the white-tailed eagle Haliaetus albicilla and discusses perforations in victims' bones done by the white-tailed and golden eagles. The food remains show very low degree of fragmentation; bones of the pectoral girdle and wing predominate while head and leg elements are poorly represented. The proportion of perforated sterna differs between the two species of eagles and it is suggested that the differences are attributed to the species of prey rather than the way of handling them by the raptors.     

Stability in a Spatial Production and Trade System

Basic properties of the production and trade system for sulfur in the North Atlantic sphere are studied. Oligopolistic competition produces a more stable system than polypoly. Occasional exceptions, difficult to anticipate theoretically, are possible, however. When subjected to realistic exogenous shocks in consumption (demand), the system is less stable than if the shocks appear in supply.     

Fragmentation and preservation of bird bones in uneaten food remains of the Gyrfalcon Falco rusticolus

This paper presents fragmentation patterns of bird bones in uneaten food remains of the gyrfalcon Falco rusticolus. The victims' bones show a relatively low degree of fragmentation. Elements of the pectoral girdle and wing predominate while head and leg elements are poorly represented.