Nordic Region History
Here is a brief overview of this web site and it’s content, and what will be projected and presented in the future. Facts on: Nordic, ingredients, Nordic nutrition, history, culture, cuisine, tradition and customs, landscape images, stock photos, regional food, regional products and local producers and some links to relative products and information.
Also about everyday nutritional needs, tips and ideas, and the use of common sense in the many healthy food choice options. History is also very important, it has been said many times, “unless you know where you have come from, and know who you are, you won’t know where you are going”. Here is some information on the history of Finland in the Nordic region.
The first signs of early beginnings in the Nordic region of Finland is said to have been found in a Wolf Cave in Kristinestad (Kristiinankaupunki).
In 1996, these objects were found in the cave that brought about speculations that it could have been inhabited in the Paleolithic, 120,000 to 130,000 years ago. These objects, if authentic, would be the only known Neanderthal artifacts in the Nordic countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Cave
The early pioneers to the north Fennoscandia area and the Nordic region
would have been a hunter-gatherer and forage community of individuals.
About 10,000 years ago all modern-day humans were hunter-gatherers and foraging communities. The last ice age to occur in the Nordic Arctic region was about that time (8000 BC). The Nordic landscape in 6000 BC with its natural distribution of plants and trees was somewhat different to what we see today in the Nordic environment, e.g. the combination/ration of birch trees versus pine trees in far north has turned tables.
Today the tundra regions are mostly treeless, but previously there was a tree cover of silver birch trees dominating over the pine trees. There have been submerged tree trunks discovered in the far north that reveals the type of a tree and their lifetime climate and the growing seasons, just like the core samples of ice cores from Antartica. The longest ice core drilled was dated back: 420,000 years (Vostok Antartica) it revealed 4 past glacial cycles.
There are other artifacts found previously in the far north Lapland, that date back to 6000 BC, relics, and everyday tools/weapons of that time.
Also another item of Antiquity found was in a watery swamp at Särkiaapa in Särkelä, they were a set of BC-ski’s (backcountry), including bindings and with a carved out dynamic groove on the bottom of the skies, (to prevent sideways slip, and to improve the steering path line) their origins have been radiocarbon dated back to the Stone Age, 3200 BC, they were found in 1938.
“The Battleax and the Comb Ceramic cultures merged giving rise to the Kiukainen culture which existed between 2300 BC and 1500 BC featuring fundamentally a comb ceramic tradition with cord ceramic characteristics”. –Wikipedia.
The Nordic natural landscape would have grown and interacted naturally with the changes in the climate: the fauna grazing free and feeding on the flora. The seasons of growth, resting, sleep, hibernating and the dying: the ebb and the flow of water, the trough and the crest of the seasons, forever interacting with life dynamically. The deer, reindeer and the beavers, bears wolves and squirrels. The silver birch trees, the pine, Juniper, Oak, and the Rowan berry tree. Trees overshadowing the natural wild mushrooms and the forest berries.
Much of the Nordic environment has evolved naturally without much interruption from the feeders, fertilizer’s and the pollinators, the early pioneer forage expeditions would have found the environment in its a natural state, with the comforting assurance of food and supplies in the future. The territory dominating brown bears and the pack hunting wolves was a real danger in the dark backwoods of the unexplored, unpopulated by humans, far-reaching open wilderness space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees
The landscape, environment, and bio-diversity in the Nordic and the Fennoscandia regions were only really affected by the seasons and the climate. The Battle ax and the Comb Ceramic cultures merged giving rise to the Kiukainen culture which existed between 2300 BC and 1500 BC featuring fundamentally a comb ceramic tradition with cord ceramic characteristics. A brief timeline of the Nordic region:
Paleolithic
If confirmed, the oldest archeological site in Finland would be the Wolf Cave in Kristinestad, Ostrobothnia.
Mesolithic
The earliest traces of modern humans are known from ca. 8500 BC and are post-glacial. The people were first probably seasonal hunter-gatherers. Their items are known as the Suomusjärvi culture and the Kunda culture. Among the finds is the fishnet of Andrea, one of the oldest fishing nets ever excavated (calibrated carbon dating: ca. 8300 BC).
Neolithic
Around 5300 BCE pottery appeared in Finland. The earliest representatives belong to the Comb Ceramic Cultures, known for their distinctive decorating patterns. This marks the beginning of the Neolithic for Finland, although the subsistence was still based on hunting and fishing.
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age began sometime after 1500 BCE. The coastal regions of Finland were a part of the Nordic Bronze Culture, whereas in the inland regions the influences came from the bronze-using cultures of Northern and Eastern Russia.
Definition from the pages of Wikipedia: “A hunter-gatherer or forage[1] society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were hunter-gatherers until around 10,000 years ago. Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers have been displaced by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplements, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming and/or keeping animals”. -Wikipedia.
Picture Gallery.