Funerary ritual and symbolism

Description

The Finnish people of the late Iron Age left behind several distinct types of cemetery employing disparate funerary rituals and symbolic texts. Comparison of these sites with ethnohistoric data about eschatology, funerary practice and social organization on the one hand and with the preserved oral tradition of pre-Christian myths and heroic tales on the other suggests that the prehistoric Finns were a shamanistic society deeply immersed in a culture of ancestor worship and belief in spirit beings. This work explains the variation in mortuary ritual and defines the beliefs behind the rites. Economic and sociopolitical factors are considered in delineating the proposed development of the pagan Finnish world view. The place of research on prehistoric religion within the general framework of medieval archaeology is discussed, and lines of inquiry by which interdisciplinary studies may enable and enhance our understanding of proto- and prehistoric ideological systems within cultural continuities are suggested.