Ahvola 1918: Archaeological Reconnaissance of a Finnish Civil War Battlefield

Abstract

The Finnish Civil War (1918) has received very little attention from the archaeologists until recently. This paper describes the first archaeological investigation of a Civil War battlefield in the Karelian Isthmus, nowadays northwest Russia. The battlefield of Ahvola, which saw one of the decisive battles of the war, was surveyed briefly in November 2007. With relatively little subsequent landuse, the general landscape has remained roughly similar to that of the early twentieth century, and the remains of field fortifications have been preserved unexpectedly well. Thus the fields of Ahvola hold high potential for more widespread archaeological studies in future. The present survey, along with two earlier surveys of Finnish Civil War battlefields, provides important base data for future research on the subject.