Orientations of the Medieval Stone Churches in Finland

In 1290-1560 A.D., about one hundred stone churches were built in Finland. About eighty of those have survived to date, some of them in a ruined state. In this study, the orientations of 81 Medieval Finnish stone churches were measured. The obtained results were related to the ecclesiastical calendar used in Medieval Finland and the historical records of the folk beliefs concerning the feast days of saints. The results showed the church orientations to be mainly towards the eastern and north-eastern directions. The orientations of individual churches were, within the given error limits, found to be mainly towards the sunrises of the day of the equinox as given by the various definitions of the equinox. The orientations of some churches may have been intended towards the sunrises of the feast days of saints, although it was observed that, generally, the churches were not oriented towards the sunrises of the feast days of their patron saints. The general form of the orientation distribution can be explained by orientations towards the sunrises of the equinoxes, with contributions from the orientations towards the sunrises of the feast days of some individual saints and the Easter Day

THE BEAR AND THE YEAR : ON THE ORIGIN OF THE FINNISH LATE IRON AGE FOLK CALENDAR AND ITS CONNECTION TO THE BEAR CULT

The role of the bear as a calendric deity among the Finnic and Finno-Ugric peoples echoes it general importance in all aspects of the northern cultures. The Finnic peoples divided their year into four parts by two Bear Days in January and July, and the Summer and Winter Nights between those. In the earliest wooden folk calendars in Finland that can be traced to the 13th century, those calendric marker days had already been fixed into the Julian year, but in earlier times, they would have been determined by a lunisolar or lunar calendar. The calendric system of the late Iron Age Finns and other Finnic peoples was lunisolar with intercalation, and its structure and main marker days indicate that it had several layers of different age: the, Bear Year. seasonal division, the idea of the eight-divided solar year - probably of Indo-European origin-, and a basic lunisolar intercalation calendar with twelve or thirteen months. The Finnish celestial lore related to the bear can also be connected to the seasonal positions of the Big Dipper asterism. While the seasonal calendric significance of the bear in Eurasian cultures is probably very ancient, possibly even Paleolithic, the connection of the Finnic Bear Year seasonal division and lunisolar calendars can be traced at least to the late Neolithic period.Peer reviewe

Orientations and Placement of the Middle and Late Neolithic Housepits of Ostrobothnia: A First Investigation Based on On-site and Lidar Observations

The orientations and placements of 349 single-room and 72 multi-room housepits or 'longhouses' of Middle and Late Neolithic Ostrobothnia have been analysed and compared with each other and the orientations and placement of the Giants' Churches. It was found that while the housepits in general were often oriented along the local termin, some of them were oriented towards certain, probably astronomically determined directions. The astronomical orientations seem to be related to hitherto unrecognized subgroups of the housepits, which were partly covered but not exhausted by the selected subgroups of this study. The multi-room pithouses a.k.a. terraced houses and 'longhouses' had an orientation distribution different from all other subgroups of housepits and the Giants' Churches, and may have been deliberately oriented perpendicular to the Giants' Churches. The doorways of rectangular housepits were found to mostly reflect the axial orientations of the housepits, and there may have been regional differences: in the large dwelling sites of Kokkola-Kruunupyy-Pedersöre region, the doorways of the housepits seem to have been preferably oriented towards the four cardinal directions. The astronomical orientations of the housepits may indicate the ex.istence of a lunar or lunisolar "seasonal pointer" calendric system, the kinds of wh ich have previously been detected in the Giants' Churches and European megalithic monuments. It was observed that in addition to possible astronomical orientations, also cairns and other signs of ritualization, which are frequently encountered with the Giants' Churches, are seen around some middle-sized and large housepits. The ritualization of a housepit could be connected to beliefs concerning the 'death' of a house, and the process of turning a decaying pithouse into a ritual site, perhaps a mortuary or ancestral monument. Among the housepits, the existence of the class of 'central', i.e. prominently placed middle-sized or large housepits is suggested. The central housepits cannot be distinguished from the Giants' Churches by their placement among other housepits or orientations alone, and together these two categories of prominent structures may indicate the existence of social and/or regional hierarchy with different levels in Late Neolithic Ostrobothnia

Elämän synty avaruudessa on edelleen arvoitus

Kari Lounamo ja Tamara Tuuminen kirjoittivat kiinnostavasta ja ajankohtaisesta aiheesta, astrobiologian viime vuosien tutkimustuloksista, otsikolla ”Onko elämä tullut avaruudesta?” (Tieteessä tapahtuu 6/2011). Itse otsikkonsa kysymykseen artikkeli ei tuonut vastausta, sillä sellaista ei vielä olekaan olemassa. Koska kirjoituksesta kuitenkin saattoi saada sen käsityksen, että panspermiateoria olisi tutkijoiden keskuudessa erityisessä suosiossa, tai jopa, että sitä pidettäisiin lähes varmana, haluan tässä esittää elämän synnystä sen, mitä tällä hetkellä asiasta tiedetään ja mikä on ainoastaan spekulaatiota

Arkeoastronomia apuna jätinkirkkotutkimuksessa

Pohjanmaan jätinkirkot ovat Pohjois-Euroopan suurimpia kivikautisia monumentteja. Viime vuonna käynnistyneessä arkeoastronomisessa projektissa on mitattu niiden suuntaukset suhteessa tärkeisiin aurinkopäiviin. Valtaosassa suurimmista jätinkirkoissa havaittiin merkitseviä aurinkosuuntauksia. Tulos voi auttaa tämän muinaisjäännösryhmän luonteen selvittämisessä. Jätinkirkkojen esimerkki osoittaa, että arkeoastronomisia tuloksia voidaan käyttää täydentämään arkeologisten tutkimusten luomaa kuvaa myös Suomen muinaisjäännöksistä

Orientations of Late Neolithic to Bronze Age and Iron Age Long Cairns in Coastal Finland

Peer reviewe

Sockerkick: Effekterna på Handelsmönstret Inom EU15 Efter 2006 års Sockerreform

The European Union is a large organ that is constantly under reformation. EU and the Common Agricultural Policy has during its lifetime gone through several major reforms in order to adjust regulations for certain markets. Our study will pay focus on the Sugar reform that was implemented in year 2006 and what effects it had on the European sugar market. The purpose of the reform was to give more power to the natural market balance within the strictly regulated European sugar market. We examined the possibility of finding a connection between this reform and change in trade patterns with sugar in the EU. Our expected result was that high-cost producing countries would have stopped producing sugar and instead chosen import. The paper will initially introduce the Common Agricultural policy of the EU and its history and the former sugar market regulations. By testing different variables we tried to find a clear connection between the reform and change in trade patterns. Through our regressions the paper will present a result. However, we did not manage to find a clear connection in any of our regressions. Hence we also have descriptive statistics in forms of graphs. These graphs help to give a visual understanding of certain effects. Nevertheless, our study was not enough to find out whether it was due to the reform or other variables