Russian hunters came to Norway 10.000 years ago
New archaeological findings in the border areas between Norway and Finland suggest immigration and cultural contacts from today’s Russia to northern Finland and Norway 10.000 years ago.
In Scandinavian archaeology the traditional understanding has been that the first people to Norway came from the south. They came through Denmark or over the North Sea at least 11,500 years ago and colonized the whole coast of Norway.
New findings on habitations and new interpretations of old findings give clear indications that 1500 years after the first immigration, there was a new period of strong influence from the outside, this time from the East.
The impulses from the East at first influenced Finnmark and later large parts of Scandinavia, according to a team of scientists from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The results of their research were published in the journal Norwegian Archeaeological Review, NRK writes.
The first discoveries were made in Finland, not far from the border to Norway. In the period 8500-8100 B.C. people there used methods to make weapons and tools only known from archeological findings in southern Finland, Russia and other parts of the eastern Baltic area. The methods are known from the Onega Sea area and in the upper parts of the rivers Volga and Oka in today’s Russia.
The same methods for making weapons and tools were also found to have been used in Varangerfjorden in Finnmark. From there the eastern knowledge spread along the coast to southern Norway and into southern Sweden.
According to Professor Håkon Glørstad at the University of Oslo the new technology from the East made its impression on Scandinavia through thousands of years and was used in different versions up to about 6000 years ago.