Beyond Consumption: Functionality, Artifact Biography, and Early Modernity in a European Periphery

Beyond Consumption: Functionality,Artifact Biography, and Early Modernityin a European Periphery

Vesa-Pekka Herva & Risto Nurmi

Published online: 11 February 2009# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract This paper considers the functionality and biographies of artifacts in thecontext of historical archaeology. It is argued that in order to understand how humanlife in the recent past unfolded in relation with material culture, artifacts must berecognized to perform various unobvious functions and also be conceived asprocesses rather than bounded physical objects. The paper begins with a theoreticaldiscussion and then focuses on the post-acquisition life of artifacts and human-artifact relations in the seventeenth-century town of Tornio, northern Finland.

Keywords Artifact biography . Early modernity . Functionality . Tornio

Introduction

Consumption, “the act of shopping and the conversion of resources into objects andactions” (Scarlett 2002, p. 129), has received considerable attention in historicalarchaeology especially since the 1990s. The perceived importance of consumptionhinges on the idea that consumer choices and possessions express, reproduce, andmanipulate social relations and identities. Thus, the study of consumption arguablycasts light on various issues from large-scale social transformations to theconstitution of the self in the past.

Consumption is often regarded as a form of non-verbal communication, “actswhich do not so much ‘do something’ as ‘say something’, or more properly, perhaps,‘do something through saying something’” (Campbell 1995, p. 115; cf. Cook et al.1996; Purser 1992; Scarlett 2002). The tendency to focus on the mental,representational and symbolic dimension of artifacts, however, potentially results

Int J Histor Archaeol (2009) 13:158–182DOI 10.1007/s10761-009-0080-3

V.-P. Herva (*) : R. NurmiDepartment of Archaeology, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 1000, 90014 Oulu, Finlande-mail: [email protected]

R. Nurmie-mail: [email protected]

in a failure to appreciate the very materiality of artifacts, that is, the uses of andeveryday engagement with material culture (Löfgren 1997, p. 103; Olsen 2003, pp.91–93; see also Miller 1987, pp. 95–98). Indeed, while consumption- and meaning-centered studies of artifacts blossom in historical archaeology (e.g., Spencer-Wood1987; Yentsch 1991; Lucas 2003; Hartnett 2004), functionality and the actual uses ofartifacts are rarely considered in depth and a theoretically based manner. This papermakes an attempt to re-materialize things and grasp everyday engagement withmaterial culture by considering the post-acquisition biography of artifacts.

That artifacts have been used for other than supposed primary purposes is not anovel observation in historical archaeology (e.g., Cessford 2001; Scott 1997;Sudbury 1978). Notwithstanding, studies on the use and biography of artifacts havebeen descriptive in orientation or sought to solve “practical” problems such asidentifying pottery forms from potsherds (e.g., Griffiths 1978; Lister and Lister1981; Sudbury 1978). In addition, signs of the repair and reuse have been regardedas potential indicators of economical status (e.g., Niukkanen 2002, pp. 37–38). Theuses and biographies of artifacts, then, have not been completely overlooked inhistorical archaeology, but they are rarely used to elucidate the nature of human-artifact relations in specific contexts (but cf. Lucas 2009); rather, the aim is usuallyto reach people and social structures “behind” artifacts (see further Olsen 2003,pp. 89–90). This attitude is unsurprising, of course, given the pervasive subject/object dualism in modern western thinking, which has effectively naturalized theidea of material culture as a mere manifestation of human thought and behavior.

In what follows, we will briefly discuss functionality and artifact biographies firstat a theoretical level and then focus on the case of the seventeenth-century town ofTornio in northern Finland (Sweden until 1809). We argue that the actual uses ofartifacts in specific contexts are crucial for understanding how human life unfolds inrelation with the external world. A number of observations and interpretation madein this paper are rather tentative, and not least because the analysis of thearchaeological material from Tornio material is still in progress, but the availabledata is sufficient for illustrating and substantiating the view developed here. Also,while the focus of the paper, empirically speaking, is on a single archaeologicalassemblage from an early modern European periphery, the issues underlying thediscussion of the specific material are of wider relevance.

Functionality and Artifact Design

In 1896, the architect Louis Sullivan declared that “form ever follows function” and,therefore, if “function does not change form does not change.” For Sullivan, thislinear relationship between form and function was a universal principle, “thepervading law” found everywhere in nature and the world of artifacts (Sullivan1896). That form follows function is a dictum of modern architecture and design, butthe very idea that function is somehow inscribed in the form of things also shapesarchaeological interpretation, albeit perhaps unconsciously.

For instance, the belief is common that artifacts such as wall paintings andstatuettes were intended to be looked at in the past, because they tend to be visuallyengaging and defy practical purpose in terms of mechanical causation (Herva

Int J Histor Archaeol (2009) 13:158–182 159159

2006b). Ceramic vessels are similarly believed, due to their design, to have been forprocessing, consuming and storing food, clay pipes for smoking, knives for cutting,and so on. They are supposedly not the functions of things that require interpretationin typical (early) modern contexts, but the “meanings” invested in things.

Theoretically, however, the relationship between form and function is a rathercomplex one and there are good reasons to problematize the functionality ofseemingly familiar historical artifacts. But before going down that way, it must beemphasized that we do not doubt that, say, porcelain cups were used for drinking hotbeverages and clay pipes were used for smoking—sometimes and in some contexts,that is. Rather, the question is whether or not, or to what extent, it is appropriate anduseful to think that artifacts are for the purpose they at first seem to be, and/or for thepurpose their designers intended them to be. The problem is that, in principle,function is always contextual and cannot be directly inferred from form.

By the “function” of an artifact we must mean the use to which it is put, andintended to be put. Hence any attempt to define functionality in terms ofuniversals of form is evanescent; for all artifacts deploy a sense of designwhich is socially and historically constructed and indivisible from end use; theuse of an artifact is of itself a social and not an objective, universal property(Graves-Brown 1995, p. 14).

It is often the case in (historical) archaeology, however, that the notions offunctionality and use of artifacts remain implicit and generic; that is, concerned withthe supposed intended function of certain types of artifacts rather than the actual use ofspecific artifacts in a given context (but see Orser 1996, pp. 116–117). While thatapproach is perhaps appropriate for many purposes, there are good reasons to challengesimplistic notions of (“intended”) functionality. Two examples illustrate the point.

First, photomultiplier tubes—hi-tech material culture of the recent past—are verysensitive light detectors that were originally developed for the purposes of the televisionindustry in the 1930s, but were soon harnessed for a variety of purposes from chemicalanalysis to military technology (Baird 2004, pp. 75–79). Interestingly, the multi-functionality of photomultiplier tubes derives partly from such properties of tubes thatthey were not intended to have by their designers. That is, non-illuminatedphotomultiplier tubes produce so-called “dark current”, which was a problem forthose using photomultiplier tubes to develop new spectrometers, but could be used togenerate signals for the military purposes of blocking out radars (Baird 2004, pp. 81–84). Thus, “several of the early uses of photomultiplier tubes relied on differentconceptualization of their function from that of their designers” (Baird 2004, p. 131).

Secondly, consider more familiar but no less exotic witch bottles. Stonewarebottles filled with pins, nails and human substances were sometimes hidden in thestructures of English houses during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, oftenunder the threshold or the fireplace, in order to prevent evil spirits from entering thehouse (Merrifield 1987). Before a stoneware bottle was turned into an evil-spiritrepellent, it had perhaps been used for one or several other purposes. Nonetheless, itis possible that the use of the bottle for apotropaic purpose was more important thanany other function that the object had performed prior to its deposition. Moreover,witch bottles were considered perfectly functional objects after their deposition;indeed, deposition marked the beginning of their life as witch bottles.

160 Int J Histor Archaeol (2009) 13:158–182

These examples reveal the fallacy of distinguishing between primary andsecondary functions. The use of photomultiplier tubes in the television industrywas not in any meaningful sense primary to their use in the military industry, andneither was the use of stoneware bottles as witch bottles subordinate to some“proper” or “primary” function. The question of multiple functions has alsoimplications to the bigger issue of human-artifact relations, to which we will turnattention next.

Human-Artifact Relations and Artifact Biography

That artifacts have “practical” and “symbolic” functions is an established view inhistorical archaeology. Accordingly, a clay pipe, for instance, can be used not onlyfor smoking tobacco, but also for conveying political or other messages (e.g.,Hartnett 2004). By the same token, the form of an earthenware vessel is supposedlydetermined by its “mechanical” function and the decoration by “symbolic” concerns(e.g., Niukkanen 2007). Artifacts can obviously be used for various mechanical andexpressive purposes, but the dualistic conception of functionality is an unfortunateone, as it potentially obscures rather than promotes our understanding of relation-ships between people and material culture. In other words, material culture mediateshuman-environment relations in ways that cannot properly be described within adualistic framework. Recent research and thinking in cognitive science, for instance,indicate that material culture and the physical world more generally need to beconceptualized as an integral part of human physiology and cognitive machinery,literally—rather than metaphorically—extension of human organism (e.g., Clark1997; Day 2004; Hutchins 1995; see also Turner 2000, 2004; DeMarrais et al. 2005).

Western thought has tended to rely on a series of categorical, binary distinctionsto make sense of the world, including those drawn between the human and non-human world, subject and object, organism and environment. Dualism splits theworld into quantitative and qualitative aspects of which only the former are taken tobe properties of the “real world” and the latter produced by the human mind(Manzotti 2006). The physical world is taken to consist of autonomous objects withcertain fixed properties defined by physical laws. Accordingly, stones, pots and othermaterial things can effectively be manipulated mechanically and not, for instance, bythinking of or talking to them, although people may sometimes believe otherwise(see further Brück 1999, pp. 314–320; Griffin 2000, especially pp. 110–116, 208–210). Objects would thus seem to stand in sharp contrast to active, sentient,conscious and knowing human subjects.

Notwithstanding, a more active role has been attributed to material cultureespecially since the 1980s. The concepts of artifact biography and (material) agencyhave been instrumental in this change of attitude among the students of materialculture, and the former in particular is of interest here. The concept of artifactbiography establishes a (metaphorical) relationship between organisms and artifacts:like organisms, artifacts are recognised to have their specific life histories duringwhich they potentially have several different functions and meanings (e.g., Chapman2000; Langdon 2001; Marshall and Gosden 1999). In the context of historicalarchaeology, however, the agency and biography of things appear to have received


relatively little attention (but see Harrison 2003; Dellino-Musgrave 2005; Orser1996, pp. 116–117).

The virtue of the new perspectives on material culture is that they challenge somedeeply embedded conceptions on the function and meaning of artifacts. In otherwords, it is not always obvious how people relate with artifacts, in what waysartifacts mediate relationships between people and the surrounding world, and forwhat purposes artifacts are used in different phases of their biography. It has beenproposed, for instance, that the making of artifacts can in itself be functional and the“finished” artifacts only more or less useless by-products (e.g., Ingold 2000, pp.127–130, 198; Küchler 1987). On the other hand, artifacts can be inalienable objectsin the sense that they are an integral part of their owners (e.g., Chapman 2000;Weiner 1992). Artifacts can also be regarded as living entities and non-humanpersons with their own special powers (e.g., Brumm et al. 2006; Harvey 2005, pp.99–115). Also, the breaking and deposition of artifacts can be meaningful activities,and artifacts can continue to be functional even after deposition, although they arenot visible anymore and nothing is really done with them (e.g., Chapman 2000, pp.25–26; Herva 2005; for a related case in historical archaeology, see Schávelzon2005).

To what extent these and other similar ideas, drawn from and developed in non-western/pre-modern contexts, are relevant to the interpretation of specific artifactsfrom post-medieval western contexts must be assessed in each case, but they canpotentially broaden interpretive horizons in historical archaeology. It is obvious thatdetailed biographies of specific artifacts cannot be reconstructed in archaeology, butthe traces of use, repair and recycling, as well as the circumstances of deposition, canprovide insights into the life things. In the following, we aim to discuss materialfrom the early modern town of Tornio, northern Finland, against the theoreticalbackground outlined above.

The History and Archaeology of Tornio

The town of Tornio is located on the small island of Suensaari in the delta of theRiver Tornio, which along with its tributaries had served as an important waterwayto Lapland since the prehistoric times (Fig. 1). The town was founded in 1621, butTornio had been an important market place at the bottom of the Gulf of Bothniasince at least the medieval period (Mäntylä 1971, p. 12; Vahtola 1980, p. 503). Thefounding of a number of new towns in Sweden during the early and mid-seventeenthcentury represented an attempt of the crown to control trade by confining it to urbancenters. Trade had traditionally been in the hands of powerful farmer-merchants inthe River Tornio Valley and over a huge area in Lapland, but the burghers of thenewly founded town were now granted a privilege to control the highly profitableLapland trade, and the town prospered towards the end of the seventeenth century(Mäntylä 1971).

Despite its economic success in terms of turnover, Tornio remained a very smalltown throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: its population varied,after the first decades, between five and seven hundred people (Mäntylä 1971,pp. 404–407, 418–423). The town originally constituted of two rows of blocks by


two streets, but a third street with new blocks emerged in the later seventeenthcentury (Fig. 2). Fire destroyed the town partly and sometimes almost completelyseveral times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition, isostaticrebound made the harbour shallow already around the mid-seventeenth century,which led to calls, after the fire of 1679, for the town to be relocated (Mäntylä 1971,p. 151). Relocation never actualized, but the plan was not dropped until the lateeighteenth century.

Several archaeological excavations have been conducted in Tornio since the1960s, especially during the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Most campaigns havebeen small-scale test and rescue excavations, but a large-scale rescue excavation wascarried out in 2002, when two modern building lots were partially excavated nextto the sites of the seventeenth-century market square and the town hall (see Figs. 2and 3). The archaeological material discussed in this paper derives mainly from the2002 campaign. The excavation focused on seventeenth-century layers because,according to the position adopted by the Finnish National Board of Antiquities,cultural heritage legislation protects urban contexts pre-dating to the arbitrarily

Fig. 1 Location of Tornio at the bottom of the Gulf of Bothnia. Drawing: Timo Ylimaunu


chosen year 1721, which marks the end of the Great Nordic War and the era ofSwedish great power. Therefore, and as a consequence of the modest resourcesdirected to the rescue project, a majority of younger layers were mechanicallyremoved. Due to the same reason, the soil was not sieved.

Two large trenches, about 1,700 m2 in total, were opened (see Fig. 3). Thetrenches sampled several seventeenth-century plots, but none of them wascompletely excavated. Relatively large parts of the early modern layers within theopened areas had also been completely destroyed in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. Building remains and the contexts associated with them were the primaryobject of study, and approximately a dozen wooden structures were ultimatelyunearthed. Most building remains dated from the seventeenth century, but a feweighteenth- and nineteenth-century structures, including a wooden cellar, were also(partly) excavated. A majority of the material pre-dates to the 1720s, but the exactdating of specific contexts in often difficult. Suensaari has been inhabited prior to thefounding of the town, but any traces of pre-urban inhabitation were not encountered,

Fig. 2 Plan of Tornio at the end of the seventeenth century. The map shows warehouses on the westernbank of Suensaari, three parallel streets, and three rows of blocks divided into longish plots. The greyareas denote fields. Key: (1) Church, (2) Town hall, (3) Aspio lot excavated in 1996, (4) Ryhmäkoti lotexcavated in 2002, (5) Rakennustuote lot excavated in 2002, (6) Kristo lot excavated in 2004. Drawing:Timo Ylimaunu and Risto Nurmi after the map by Hans Kruse drawn in 1697/8


and are unlikely, due to isostatic rebound, to be found within the limits of theseventeenth-century Tornio.

Historical sources provide virtually no information about the people whoinhabited the excavated plots during the seventeenth century. The internalorganization of the plots is also unknown, as the seventeenth-century maps representthe structure of the town in a most cursory manner. A map drawn in the 1690s showsthe division of blocks into blocks and lists the owners of all plots, but none of theexcavated remains can be linked to actual individuals or families. The socialgeography of the town prior to the eighteenth century also remains unknown. ErikBrunnius (1965 [1731], pp. 24–25) informs us that, around 1730, “the most abletraders” had built their houses by the first street, “common people” by the second,and “the poorest” by the third. After the end of the Great Nordic War, the plots weretaxed for the first time, and the annual rental payments confirm that the plots by thefirst street were the most expensive and those by the third street the cheapest(Mäntylä 1971, pp. 243–244). By the mid-eighteenth century, there was anobservable, but not very rigid spatial differentiation by class within the town. Theplots by the first and second street were occupied primarily by traders, burghers andofficials, although a few were also owned by craftsmen and sailors (Kostet 1982,pp. 163–164). It seems probable that the post-war taxation of plots reflects the pre-war social geography, but whether or not, or to what degree, that situation originatesin the earliest phases of the town is not known.

Fig. 3 General plan of the 2002 excavations in Tornio. Excavation areas A1–A4 were located in the so-called Rakennustuote lot and areas A5–A8 in the Ryhmäkoti lot. Drawing: Katri Arminen and RistoNurmi


Post-Acquisition Life of Artifacts in Early Modern Tornio

The finds from the 2002 excavations are in many ways typical to post-medievalurban sites in Finland. The single largest find category consists of animal bones(about 165 kg and 12,000 fragments) (Puputti, manuscript in possession of author).The pottery finds comprised another major category of finds (about 56 kg and 5,100fragments). Red earthenware clearly dominates the material, but stoneware,maiolica, faience and even porcelain are found in seventeenth-century contexts(Ikäheimo 2006, p. 400). Of other ceramic finds, clay pipes are represented by a littleless than 6 kg and some 2,250 pieces (Salo 2007). Pieces of bottles, glass vessels andwindow glass were also commonly found, as well as metal objects such as knivesand coins.

While appropriate comparative material is not available in abundance, theimpression is that the total amount of the finds from the 2002 excavations is rathermodest and spread thinly over the two trenches. To illustrate, the excavation of a lateeighteenth-century/early nineteenth-century rubbish pit (c. 4 m in diameter and0.3 m deep) in Oulu, some hundred km south of Tornio, produced approximately45 kg/8,600 fragments of animal bones and 11 kg/2,800 fragments of pottery (Herva2006c; Puputti 2007). Also, the Tornio material would appear to be highlyfragmentary. For instance, complete or even nearly complete pots (that is, vesselsrestorable from the recovered pieces) are virtually absent and most are representedonly by a small portion of the original vessels. The material is also characterized bya degree of wornness and the traces of repair and reuse. Due to lack of publishedcomparative material, it is difficult to assess how common or uncommon the featuresof the Tornio material discussed below actually are.

Recycling Building Materials

The 2002 excavation produced some evidence of the recycling of building materialin early modern Tornio. First, it was observed that while the wooden foundations offireplaces in seventeenth-century houses were preserved, stones had almostsystematically been removed from them and apparently recycled for other purposes.As to other building materials, logs were commonly reused in medieval and earlymodern Finland, as is evidenced, for instance, by multiple fittings on logs (e.g.,Kykyri 2003, p. 107 with references; Lipponen 2005, p. 101). There is little directevidence of reusing logs in Tornio, but that is most probably due to the scarcity ofdendrochronological analyses and relatively poor preservation of wood, whichmakes it difficult to observe the traces of multiple uses. Nonetheless, one well-preserved cellar, built of logs dating from the late eighteenth century (Zetterberg etal. 2004), had been partly deconstructed at the time of abandonment. A majority oflogs must have been carried away, as no trace of the upper structure was observed,even though the lower part of the deep-dug cellar was very well preserved.

A third category of building materials worth mentioning is window glass. Thereuse of window glass as window glass is difficult to identify, but a number ofwindow-glass fragments have been identified which show evidence of multiplefittings into different frames. The reuse of window glass is expected since it was animported commodity until the eighteenth century and therefore not only relatively


expensive, but also subject to potentially limited availability. In addition, brokenwindow glass was used as raw material for various artifacts in seventeenth-centuryTornio (see below).

Wear, Repair and Recycling of Artifacts

The finds from the 2002 excavations contain considerable evidence of the wear,repair and recycling of artifacts. This evidence is discussed below with a specialemphasis on pottery and clay pipes, though other types of artifacts are alsoconsidered. The treatment of the different find categories is necessarily somewhatunbalanced because the wear and use marks in pottery remain to be systematicallyrecorded, whereas the pipe material has been meticulously examined by Salo (2007).Other finds, especially glass and metal, have been studied in a preliminary manner,but the sheer quantity of window glass fragments, for instance, presents somepractical problems, as does the small size of vessel glass fragments. Nonetheless, theavailable evidence is sufficient to allow us address several issues related tofunctionality and artifact biography.

As to ceramics, a total of 98 potsherds have holes that have been made afterglazing. Some holes could be indicative of something else than repair, but a majorityof them are located so (i.e., next to fracture) as to suggest post-breakage joining ofpieces. In a few cases, a leaden rivet was still in place (Fig. 4). Repairing potentiallyaffected the use of vessels, which were no longer fluid proof unless the joint wassealed. A total of 15 potsherds show evidence of such sealing or gluing. Theoccurrence of repair in potsherds is statistically rare because only some 2% of allfragments show signs of repair. Since a minimum number of vessels in the 2002assemblage have not been counted, the proportion of repaired pots cannot beestimated. Nonetheless, counting the traces of repair per vessel would result in a(significantly) higher percentage than that based on the sherd count. For the purposesof the present paper, however, it suffices to note that the mere absolute number ofpotsherds with repair marks shows that repairing pottery was not limited to isolatedcases.

One specific case must be mentioned here. Namely, pieces of two decoratedmaiolica plates were found in a cellar pit under the house in Area 5. This contextwas closed and undisturbed, and the filling of the pit can be dated to the 1630s,which means that it represents the earliest phase of inhabitation in the town. Holeshad been drilled in the both plates so as to suggest (an attempt) to repair them.Moreover, one of the plates had been “personified” by incising owner’s mark on thebottom (Fig. 5). Another vessel with an incised owner’s mark has been found in theexcavation of the so-called Aspio lot nearby, though that vessel is a plain,undecorated red earthenware bowl. The cellar pit also produced a large fragmentof a stoneware mug decorated with a Fall motif in relief. The mug is dated to c. 1550(Gaimster 1997, pp. 200–201), which indicates that it had had a notably long use-lifebefore its deposition in the cellar pit.

Potsherds have also been used as raw material for new artifacts in Tornio. A totalof 46 pieces in the 2002 assemblage show evidence of such treatment: 35 potsherdshave been shaped into so-called gaming pieces—more probably counters (Nurmi2005)—and 11 pieces are probably spindle whorls (see Fig. 4). Pieces of red


earthenware were most commonly recycled, which reflects the overall dominance ofred earthenware in the ceramic assemblage, but the reuse of maiolica and faiencefragments is also attested in the material. The recycling of creamware and porcelain,however, is not attested although there is evidence of repairing creamware vessels.Apart from three possible fragments of cooking pots, all recycled potsherds seem toderive from tableware.

The clay pipes found in the 2002 excavations have been studied systematically inregard with wear, repair, reuse and deposition, and this research has produced some

Fig. 4 Reused potsherds (left) and a potsherd with a leaden rivet from a repaired vessel (right). Photo:Risto Nurmi

Fig. 5 Owner’s marks incised on the bottom of a maiolica plate (left) and a clay-pipe bowl (right). Photo:Risto Nurmi


very interesting results (Salo 2007). The pipe material comprises of 2,254 fragments,which are divided into 117 mouthpieces, 186 bowl fragments, and 1,951 stemfragments. A total of 131 pieces (7.6%) show observable marks of wear, repair and/or reuse, which were classified into eight types (Salo 2007).

Clear and sometimes very pronounced teeth marks can be identified on 58 stemfragments (Salo 2007). Teeth marks tend to concentrate on stem fragments other thanoriginal mouthpieces, which seems to indicate that the stem was intentionally cutbefore a pipe was used for the first time. The small pipe assemblage from a mid-eighteenth century log building at the so-called Kristo lot supports this inference;clear cut marks are in evidence on several stem fragments (Salo and Nurmiunpublished data). This data suggests, in other words, that pipes in early modernTornio were at least sometimes modified or “personified” so as to fit the owner’staste. Furthermore, the 2002 assemblage includes a pipe bowl with an owner’s markincised on it (see Fig. 5).

Another intriguing feature is that some 30 pipes in the 2002 assemblage have hada stem shorter than 100 mm at the moment of disposal. The stem length of these“stub pipes” is usually around or less than 50 mm and in 15 cases less than 30 mm.That at least some pipes with a very short stem have actually been used for smokingis evidenced by the signs of wear and/or tooth marks at the end of the stem (Fig. 6).The travellers Giuseppe Acerbi (1802, p. 357) and Edward Daniel Clarke (1838,p. 115) also remarked on the use of very short pipes in the north at the very end ofthe eighteenth century. In addition, the pipe assemblage contains two bowls with anapproximately 10 mm long stem, which has been ground smooth and the borewidened. The modification of these two pipes may represent an attempt to attach anew stem, or else the bowls had been used for some purpose other than smoking.There also evidence that slightly broken bowls were occasionally repaired by

Fig. 6 “Stub-pipes” with tooth marks on the stem. Very short-stemmed have apparently been used forsmoking in Tornio. Photo: Risto Nurmi


smoothing broken rim so as to prevent further fracture. In all, the available materialsuggests that at least some pipes were used until they were literally worn out. Thus,the pipes from seventeenth-century Tornio also contradict the truism (e.g., Ainasoja2003, p. 284; Fox 2002, p. 69; Hartnett 2004, p. 134; Mellanen 2002, p. 36) that claypipes were among the earliest disposable goods with a very short use-life.

A total of 47 pipe fragments show unambiguous evidence of reusing pipes forother purposes than smoking. The traces of reuse are limited to stem fragments. Themost common of signs of reuse are holes made on stems, the retouching andgrinding of stem pieces at both ends, and the widening of the bore. The averagelength of reused stem fragments is approximately 40 mm, but varies between 20–65 mm. The functions of reused stem pieces are uncertain, but at least some couldhave been whistles and wig-curlers (Salo 2007; see also Huey 1974; Rutter andDavey 1980, pp. 263–266; Walker 1976). As noticed earlier, stems appear to havebeen shortened before using pipes, but it is unclear whether or not intentionallybroken stem pieces were originally intended to be exploited; they may equally wellhave been thrown away and picked up when they were needed.

In addition to pottery and clay pipes, the window and bottle glass materialincludes finds with unmistakable traces of reuse. Pieces of glass have mostcommonly been shaped into gaming pieces/counters similar to those made ofpotsherds. A total of 24 of such finds have been identified: 22 are made of windowglass and 2 of bottle glass. A few pieces of window glass have also the kind ofretouching that is indicative of their use as blades. Moreover, one blade made ofbottle glass and one of vessel glass has been identified. As with pottery, the reusingof glass as raw material for other artifacts is statistically rare, but apparently notlimited to isolated cases, and that, as will be discussed later, may be more importantfor interpretation than the exact proportion of reused pieces.

The evidence on the recycling of metals is mostly indirect, but the rarity—indeedvirtual absence—of metal finds other than iron artifacts implies that copper and leadartifacts were commonly recycled. For instance, only a few fragments of leadenwindow frames were found during the 2002 excavation, even though the findsinclude several kilograms of window glass. A majority of the recovered lead artifactswere bullets, which were probably home-made from scrap metal; this is suggestedby the rarity of other lead finds on the one hand and the presence of bullet tongs onthe other. A few metal artifacts were found that have been recycled without firstmelting them down. These include a knife bent into a hook, a lead seal reused as abutton, and a brass jeton from Nuremberg and a silver coin drilled and used as apendant.

Discard and Deposition of Artifacts

In general, the finds from the 2002 excavations were rather thinly distributed in thetwo trenches and derived mainly from underneath buildings, “destruction layers”overlying building remains, and yard deposits. A comprehensive analysis of theexcavated contexts and their finds remains to be done, but few contexts wouldappear to stand out from the rest in any obvious manner. A contextual analysis of theanimal bone finds lends support to this impression of homogeneity (Puputti,manuscript in possession of author). The distribution of bones was analyzed in


regard with several factors, and even though some patterning emerges, fewsignificant differences could be observed between the (types of) contexts (Puputti,manuscript in possession of author). This data suggests, however, that the recoveredarchaeological material has not been completely mixed up by post-depositionalprocesses.

Few pits or special contexts of any kind were documented. As to the former, therewas a series of small, shallow pits around the buildings in Area 1, but these do notseem to qualify as rubbish pits, since their contents were virtually indistinguishablefrom yard deposits. Similar pits were not encountered elsewhere, and the function ofthe pits in Area 1 remains an enigma. The only definite rubbish pit was documentedin Area 3 and dated to the late eighteenth century.

As to special deposits, three probable foundation deposits were found inassociation with the early seventeenth-century buildings in Area 1. The leastambiguous of these was a cooking pot deposited under a corner of Building A. Mostpieces of the vessel derive from under the log foundation, but the handle had beenseparately deposited in cylindrical pit nearby, and three potsherds had also been putin the otherwise clean clay bank that lined the log foundation. Some fragments hadspread further in the yard and all three legs are missing, but this cooking pot is theonly virtually complete ceramic vessel (i.e., restorable from the recovered pieces) sofar identified in the 2002 assemblage (Fig. 7). Secondly, an intact iron bar was foundin the foundation of Building A. The third possible foundation deposit comprised ofnine bear claws deposited in the clay bank lining associated with the foundation ofBuilding B in Area 1. A tenth claw was recovered further in the yard, but the contextof the nine claws, along with the fact that no other bear bones have been identified,suggest a special deposit (Puputti, manuscript in possession of author).

Certain tendencies in the overall distribution and deposition of finds are relevantfor understanding artifacts biographies in early modern Tornio. First, artifact findsshowing traces of wear, repair and reuse were found in all excavation areas; Area 4is an exception, but it was very small in size and produced relatively few finds.

Fig. 7 Cooking pot found in a foundation deposit associated with an early seventeenth-century buildingin Area 1. This is the only almost complete vessel so far identified from the ceramic material of the 2002excavations. Photo: Risto Nurmi


Secondly, the finds with traces of wear, repair and reuse tended to be associated withbuildings and were rarely found in, for instance, yard deposits. Thirdly, thedistribution of repaired or reused pottery and glass finds do not show any patterns inthe sense that certain types of signs would be associated with certain areas orbuildings, whereas some variation can be observed in the clay pipe material (Salo2007). That is, the marks of use and reuse in the pipe material are limited to pre-1650 contexts in Areas 1 and 2 and to pre-1680 contexts elsewhere, excluding Area3 where some signs of use and reuse continue up to the 1760s. Furthermore, thedistribution of the specific types of traces is not even, but limited to certain areas.Building A in Area 1 is noticeable in that pipe fragments with all 8 types of marksoccur in some quantities in association with that building. Building F in Area 6, inturn, produced much evidence of long use-life of pipes, especially stem fragmentswith teeth marks and polished stem ends. Perforated stem fragments were mainlyconcentrated to Building G in Area 8 (Salo 2007).

As to discarding and depositing practices, the ceramic assemblage is particularlyinteresting although the significance of the preliminary observations made here areadmittedly speculative. A characteristic feature of the ceramic assemblage is thevirtual absence of complete, or even nearly complete, vessels. Indeed, the potsherdsderived from any single context tend to represent only a small fraction of the originalsurface of vessels. While quantitative data regarding the entire ceramic assemblage isunavailable, a tentative examination of the cooking ware fragments from Area 1supports the impression that a majority of potsherds are usually missing. In total,pieces of more than 30 cooking pots from Area 1 have been identified. Apart fromthe cooking pot associated with the foundation deposit described above, a maximumof one fifth of each pot is represented by the fragments recovered at the excavation.In nine cases 5–20% of the original pots survive and more than 20 vessels arerepresented merely by one or a few pieces. These observations need not beremarkable or uncommon, but they do encourage speculation about the dynamics ofdiscard and deposition and thus of the post-breakage life of artifacts.

In addition to the missing pieces themselves, there is also some positive evidenceof potsherds from one and the same vessel ending up relatively far from each other.For instance, fitting pieces of a stoneware vessel were recovered from the cellar pitin Area 5 and in Area 3, some 50 m south of the pit. Since no other pieces of thisvessel were found anywhere else, either the fragments themselves or soil containingthem must have been moved from one seventeenth-century plot to another,apparently from Area 5 to Area 3, since the context that produced the pieces inArea 3 is several decades younger than the fill of the cellar pit in Area 5. While itssignificance remains open, this case is worth mentioning because it leads to the moregeneral question of how and why potsherds were moved around in early modernTornio.

Of course, the explanations to missing pieces and the movement of potsherds aremany, including local discard practices and the successive clearance and leveling ofthe ground after destructive fires. Unfortunately, waste management practices arepoorly known in Tornio and other early modern towns in Finland, but it is possible,for instance, that rubbish was dumped in the bay by the town. Another possibleexplanation to the missing pieces is that they ended up in the fields with otherhousehold waste, which was used as fertilizer. Yet the main point is this: the


possibility should be taken seriously that missing pieces and the movement ofpotsherds may at least partly be a result of deliberate action—some specifictreatment of (certain) fragments—rather than a consequence of purely unintentional,extrinsic causes, such as formation processes. In other words, there is no reason toassume a priori that the distribution of potsherds is necessarily indicative ofsomething else than purposeful engagement with artifacts during the later phases oftheir use-life.

To substantiate this speculation would require more data than is available atpresent. In particular, it would be necessary to study if certain parts of pottery aremore frequently missing than others and if there are similarities and differences inregard with different classes of pottery. Yet the above speculation is not without apurpose, as it provides the background for the suggestion, which will be discussedbelow, that even discarded and deposited (fragments of) artifacts continued to have afunction, whether or not their functionality was intended or recognized. In brief, thequestion of missing and moving pieces is obviously a difficult one, but nonethelesstoo important to be dismissed as a mere taken-as-given features of the archaeologicalrecord (see further Chapman 2000).

Interpretation and Discussion

It might, at first, seem compelling to regard the signs of wear, repair and recyclingidentified in the archaeological assemblage from Tornio as evidence of loweconomic status. It is known from the preserving probate inventories that, at leastin the later half of the seventeenth century, there were stark differences in economicstatus between the residents of Tornio (see Tamelander 1941). As noticed earlier, theeconomical and social geography of seventeenth-century Tornio remains unknown,but it is possible that the people living by the second street, where the 2002 trencheswere located, did less well economically than those living by the first street, which inturn is poorly known archaeologically.

Notwithstanding, a straightforward economical interpretation of the wear, repairand recycling of artifacts in Tornio is not without problems. First, if wear, repair andrecycling had been linearly linked to economic status, one would expect to see atleast some variation in time and between households. Secondly, if economichardship had been a primary motivation for the repair and reuse of things, one wouldperhaps expect to find more extensive evidence of such practices. The economicdimension of the phenomenon is not to be doubted, but the recycling of pottery, forexample, seems more like a symbolic gesture rather than an economically drivennecessity. It is also worth noticing that while recyclable metal is generally speakingabsent, almost two hundred copper coins were found during the 2002 campaign. Thecoins are of a small nominal value, but nonetheless worth a pint or so in the publichouse (Mäntylä 1998, p. 34). Coins do get lost, of course, and large sums of moneyare not involved here, but one cannot help wondering if better care would have beentaken of coins under economical stress.

Limited market accessibility might also explain the wear, repair and recycling ofartifacts, but that explanation suffers partly from the same weaknesses as thestraightforward economical view. In particular, one would expect to see some clear


chronological variation in the wear, repair and reuse patterns. International conflictsoccasionally disrupted trade, and in winter ships did not sail, but as a centre of tradeTornio is unlikely to have suffered chronically from a limited supply of basichousehold goods. Still, the somewhat monotonous character of the archaeologicalmaterial may indicate that consumer choices were limited in some other respects(Nurmi 2009; see also Friberg 1983; Sandström 1990). Finally, a constantly limitedsupply of goods, just like low economic status, would perhaps have resulted in evenmore intensive repair and reuse of things.

These observations do not downplay the importance of economical factors andmarket accessibility as interpretive tools. Rather, we wish to stress that the wear,repair and recycling of artifacts may not be reducible to straightforward explanationsbased on, for example, universal economical reason or the availability of householdgoods. Having said that, we also recognize that occasional economical stress andshortages in the supply of goods may well have contributed to long use-live ofcertain artifacts in seventeenth-century Tornio and thus shaped human-artifactrelations in a specific way (see below). Armed with these notions, and the theoreticalframework outlined earlier, we will now consider the post-acquisition life of artifactsin Tornio from a perspective that emphasizes the significance of local ways of lifeand modes of engaging with everyday material culture.

Understanding Artifact Biographies

The interpretation of material culture in historical archaeology—and indeed theunderstanding of human-artifact relations—tends to be based on dualistic thinking,which represents material culture as a mere manifestation of human thought andbehavior. Material culture, in other words, is conceived something that is separateand different from humans beings themselves. This is a problematic position, butthere is no need to dwell on the issue here (see Boast 1997; Brück 1999; Clark 1997;Herva 2006a; Ingold 2000; Järvilehto 1998; Manzotti 2006). Rather, it suffices topoint out that a categorical distinction between, for instance, object and subject ornatural, supernatural and cultural would have made little sense in early modernFinland (e.g., Eilola 2003; Herva and Ylimaunu, manuscript in possession of theauthors).

To take but one example, manifold natural entities and artifacts were perceived topossess special properties and inherent powers (various examples can be found ine.g., Eilola 2003; Sarmela 1994;), which in turn affected the ways people engagedwith them. These special properties need not have been “magical” or “supernatural”in the sense they are conventionally understood in the literature, but merelysomething that distinguished an artifact (or any other thing) from other apparentlysimilar artifacts—that is, provided the artifact with a distinctive identity of its own.Of course, things continue to acquire various kinds of special properties also in thetoday’s supposedly rational world, but we are simply taught to downplay the realityof special qualities (see Gell 1998, pp. 17–19).

The evidence of the wear, repair and reuse of artifacts from seventeenth-centuryTornio can be understood to represent a special bond between people and certainartifacts (cf. Lucas 2009). Such a bond could have developed for a variety of reasonsand assumed various forms, but wornness, repair and owner’s marks can all be


interpreted in terms of the personification of, and attachment to, things. This isperhaps most obvious in the case of clay pipes. Wornness in this view would actuallyhave been appreciated; it was a desirable quality which added the value of artifactsin documenting long involvement between specific persons and artifacts. In otherwords, people and artifacts developed an “organic” relationship by graduallygrowing together, and people did not stick to artifacts (only) because they had to, but(also) because they wanted to.

The specific nature of the proposed organic relationship between people andartifacts in seventeenth-century Tornio eludes us, of course, but the concept of“patina” may help to characterize it a little further. Patina, as introduced byMcCracken (1988), is a metaphor for the visual indications of age associatedespecially with heirlooms and the like. Functionally, patina is understood as an indexof descendancy that legitimates the claims of status across the generations(McCracken 1988; see also Lucas 2006, pp. 42–45; Pendery 1992). We proposethat the wornness of everyday artifacts such as clay pipes and earthenware potterywas comparable to patina, but instead of signaling continuity through descendancyand status to others, patinated everyday artifacts would have created a sense ofcontinuity at a personal level.

Repairing and recycling, in turn, can both be understood as techniques ofextending the life of artifacts with which people had established a special bond. Thatrepairing extended use-life is self-evident, but in addition to preserving the physicalintegrity of artifacts, repairing also contributed to the patination of things. What isperhaps less obvious is that recycling, too, extended the life of artifacts. Thisproposal builds on the idea that artifacts are not autonomous physical objects withfixed properties, but relationally constituted entities. This means that artifacts and allother entities are continuously coming into being (rather than simply existing) andtheir identity and properties are defined by the physical, biological and socialrelationships they are endowed with (see further Gell 1998; Herva 2006a; Ingold2000, pp. 77–88, 339–361; Knappett 2005, pp. 45–47).

The relational constitution of things also means that artifacts retain or externalizesomething of the personality and agency of the people who are involved with them,as well as gain “life-force” as a result of prolonged involvement in the social world(Gell 1998, p. 222, pp. 225–226; Hicks and Horning 2006, pp. 287–292). Thus, therecycling of building materials, for example, makes sense economically, butrecycling also preserves a part of the original building and whatever qualities thatbuilding possessed as a relationally constituted entity. This means among otherthings that something of the people who had been associated with the originalbuilding were literally incorporated into the texture of a new building.

By the same token, the reuse of potsherds retains something of the properties thatintact pots represented and embodied and hence extends the use-life of pots beyondbreakage. In this view, the very idea and act of recycling—and not only the resultingnew artifacts—can be important as such. The proposed “symbolic” reuse of cheapand disposable artifacts in seventeenth-century Tornio would make a perfect senseaccording to this train of thought. It goes almost without saying that peoplethemselves need not have thought about reuse in these terms, and we certainly allowthat the specific motives for reusing potsherds and the like varied. At some level,however, recycling maintained a bond between people and artifacts.


The life and functionality of artifacts, then, does not necessarily end withbreakage, but neither does it with discard or deposition. Foundation deposits are anobvious example of that: artifacts deposited in the purpose of, for example, magicalprotection continued to be functional after deposition. But we would go on evenfurther to argue that the life of all artifacts potentially continued after they endedup in the ground. The assumption seems safe that bones, potsherds, clay-pipefragments, and other “rubbish” were scattered around in early modern Tornio,even though various post-deposition processes have contributed to the specificdistribution of the finds made during the excavation. Some rubbish was probablyjust thrown out in the yard and some of it is likely to have ended up thereunintentionally.

What concerns us here, however, is that all kinds of things were there in theground, and that rubbish continued to be functional in at least one sense. Namely, theincorporation of rubbish in the soil altered the texture of the ground and affordedperceiving it differently (cf. Evans 2003, pp. 119–121). Given that artifacts embodyhuman agency and social relations (Chapman 2000; Gell 1998), rubbish in theground “tempered” the soil with sociality and thus contributed to the personificationof the land itself. In other words, the “natural” was merged with the “cultural” in avery concrete sense (DeSilvey 2006; Edensor 2005; Evans 2003, p. 125). Onceagain, we do not know how the residents of Tornio understood the rubbish aroundthem. But regardless of what they consciously thought about rubbish, or how muchthey intentionally promoted rubbishness, potsherds and the like influenced, at somelevel, the ways people perceived the world around them and the ways they relatedwith it. That is, rubbish in the ground promoted in a subtle manner an organicrelationship between people and their everyday environment.

Continuity, Change, and Uncertainty in Seventeenth-Century Tornio

The interpretations discussed above are obviously not specific to the archaeologicalmaterial from Tornio, but can arguably apply in different contexts. It is thereforenecessary, in this final section, to consider how our observations on the life ofartifacts are linked to human life in the specific context of seventeenth-centuryTornio.

The medieval and early modern period witnessed a series of profound changes inthe communities settled at the northernmost coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. Theeconomic basis shifted gradually from the exploitation of the wilderness to farmingand the founding of towns in the early seventeenth century marked yet anothereconomic and social change; urbanism was a novel social phenomenon in thisperipheral area. Towns were not only centres of trade, but also channels throughwhich new ideas on economy, society and the world reached a northern Europeanperiphery. Furthermore, Protestantism replaced Catholicism during the sixteenth andearly seventeenth century, but neither replaced completely the local pre-Christianworldview. All these developments apparently resulted in “hybrid” ways of life anda worldview which fused manifold traditional concepts with emerging modern ones.

The archaeological material discussed in this paper implies that the residents ofseventeenth-century Tornio were not particularly “consumption-minded”, as isexemplified by the attachment to cheap and disposable artifacts; that is, the attitude


to artifacts was determined primarily by other factors than the symbolic meanings ofthings. This absence of consumption-mindedness, in turn, was associated with anunder-developed urban identity in seventeenth-century Tornio. As historians havepointed out, there was a strong tendency towards conservatism in early modernTornio (e.g., Mäntylä 1971). The observations made on artifact biographies can notonly be linked to this phenomenon, but also used to elucidate its nature. That,however, requires a consideration of certain aspects of the urban landscape ofseventeenth-century Tornio.

First, the available data on the urban landscape of seventeenth-century Tornio,while admittedly scarce, suggests that the town was organically rather thangeometrically organized. Buildings tended to be located in the centre of plots ratherthan the edges, which presumably resulted in the open and village-character of theurban space (see Herva 2003). The “agrarian” character of the town was furtherunderlined by the incorporation of fields into the town, that is, within the areaenclosed by the toll fence. The incorporation of fields into towns was strictlyproscribed, and when King Carl XI of Sweden visited Tornio in 1694, he orderedthat the fields should be removed (Kostet 1995, p. 79). His order was disregarded,however, and the fields remained within the town throughout the eighteenth century,as the town maps from the eighteenth century show (the fence itself was removedaround mid-eighteenth century).

While the fields in the town were of economical significance (Perälä 1921,pp. 16–17), their incorporation into the urban space also implies symbolicimportance as a token of pre-urban life. Animal husbandry in particular waseconomically important to the townsfolk in the seventeenth century and mostburghers were involved in it, though animals were mainly kept in farms outside thetown (Mäntylä 1971, pp. 52–53, 117–121). Furthermore, the residents of Tornio stillcontinued to exploit the wilderness and the proportion of the wild animal bones inthe osteological assemblage of the 2002 excavations is, in comparison to otherSwedish towns, exceptionally high with c. 25% (Puputti, manuscript in possession ofauthor; see also Puputti 2006).

Secondly, warehouses in the urban landscape of Tornio also testify of theadherence to local traditions. When Tornio was founded, some 30 warehouses werebuilt on the western bank of Suensaari, between the harbor area and the rest of thetown, and they were the first completed buildings in the town (Mäntylä 1971, p. 28).Intriguingly, the row of warehouses continued to occupy the same place throughoutthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, even though the harbor area itself movedtowards the southern tip of the island in the later eighteenth century (see furtherYlimaunu 2007, pp. 77–79). Given the importance of trade in the area, probably onSuensaari itself, since at least the medieval period, warehouses can arguably beunderstood as local monuments, which represented the ancestry of the town andcreated a tangible connection between the present and the past.

Thirdly, it is also worth mentioning in this context that the townsfolk stubbornlyresisted the regularization of the town plan despite the pressure from the authorities.When the regularization was finally done after the Great Northern War, the resultwas actually something of an illusion of regularization; in effect, the originalseventeenth-century town plan was restored in a slightly “modernized” form(Ylimaunu 2007, p. 88).


A fourth and the last observation to be made here is that the residents of Torniowere apparently reluctant to invest in their houses. The available evidence is notoverwhelming, but it seems that ordinary buildings were humble and unelaboratedup to shabbiness; only the most important public buildings, the town hall and thechurch, stood on a stone foundation and were painted with red ochre (Ylimaunu2006, 2007, pp. 32–35, 49–55). Tornio developed a more urban character during theeighteenth century when the spatial organization of the town became moregeometrical and enclosed and better houses began to be built (Ylimaunu 2007,esp. pp. 63–66, 97–100). Still, houses were generally speaking of a low valuedespite the blossoming economy, and the town seems to have been relatively non-urban-like in appearance even at the very end of the eighteenth century (Clarke 1997[1838], p. 206; Ojala in Clarke 1997, p. 348, note 234). If, as it seems to us, theprofits of the trade were not put in the consumption of goods, neither were they putin the elaboration of the urban environment.

We submit that the above observations made on the urban landscape of Tornio, aswell as those made earlier on artifact biographies, are expressions of uncertainty onthe one hand and strategies of coping with it on the other. This uncertainty originatedin the series of changes, referred to earlier, at the bottom of the Gulf of Bothniaduring the early modern period. Of particular importance was presumably the veryfounding of the town and the introduction of (quasi-)urban life, which markedchanges in the ways of life of local rural folk, who, as far as we know, comprised amajority of the earliest inhabitants of Tornio. Additionally, the town appears to havebeen rather unstable until at least the mid-seventeenth century, which is indicated by,for instance, major fluctuations of population (see Mäntylä 1971, p. 29, pp. 35–38).Uncertainty was also promoted by other factors, such as frequent destructive fireswhich threatened the life of the entire community and, from at least the late 1670sonwards, the plan of relocating the town.

Uncertainty, then, was inherent to the early development of Tornio andpromoted a need for perceived constancy, which could be achieved by emphasizinglocal traditions. The townsfolk thus adhered, at least symbolically, to pre-urban andpre-modern ways of life and thinking. The traditional or “non-urban” aspects of thetown and the ways of engaging with artifacts both served to strengthen continuitywith the past, albeit in different scales and different ways. The non-urban featuresof the urban landscape manipulated and reproduced collective memory andidentity, whereas attachment to artifacts created a sense of continuity at anindividual level. This sense of continuity did not derive only from the initial long-time use of things (for whatever purpose), but was potentially renewed severaltimes over the life of things all the way to deposition and even beyond that.Attachment to artifacts, in this sense, was something like a psychological weaponagainst the perceived uncertainty of life rather than a means of expressing andmanifesting identity.

Conclusions

In this paper, we have discussed various aspects of functionality and artifactbiography both theoretically and through the case study of early modern Tornio in


northern Finland. While the ideas put forward above are not original as such,relatively little has so far been made out of them in historical archaeology. However,in order to make sense of how people in the recent past engaged with materialculture and the surrounding world in general, artifacts need to be understood asprocesses rather than bounded physical objects. Furthermore, human-artifactrelations are much more complex than the conceptual division between subjectand object allows, which also means that artifacts perform various functions thatcannot properly be characterized within dualistic frames of reference.

As to the specific case of seventeenth-century Tornio, we have proposed that theresidents of the town were not particularly “consumption-minded”, and “doing withthings” rather than “saying with things” characterized human-artifact relations. Theevidence of the wear, repair and recycling of artifacts, along with certain aspects ofdeposition patterns, suggest attachment to artifacts—that is, an “organic unitybetween people and things” (Meskell 2004, p. 47). This does not mean that the townresidents developed a special bond with all artifacts around them, but thepreliminary data discussed in this paper indicates that special relationships betweenpeople and things did frequently occur. Finally, we have argued that the long use-lifeof everyday artifacts in seventeenth-century Tornio can be linked to the slowdevelopment of urban identity and a struggle for a sense of continuity against aperceived uncertainty regarding the future of the town.

Acknowledgments Vesa-Pekka Herva is an Academy of Finland post-doctoral fellow. Research for thispaper has been conducted within the project “Material Roots of Modernization in Northern Finland c. AD1500–1800: An Archaeological Study of Urbanization and Consumption”, funded by the ScientificCouncil of the University of Oulu (2004–2006). We wish to thank Janne Ikäheimo, James Symonds andTimo Ylimaunu for helping in various ways with this paper. We are also indebted to Gavin Lucas, Anna-Kaisa Puputti and Eveliina Salo for making available to us their unpublished research and papers awaitingpublication.

References

Acerbi G (1802) Travels through Sweden, Finland and Lapland to the North Cape in the years 1798 and1799, Vol. 1. Joseph Mawman, London

Ainasoja M (2003) Liitupiiput ajoittajina ja yhteiskunnan peilaajina. In: Seppänen L (ed) Kaupunkiapintaa syvemmältä: arkeologisia näkökulmia Turun historiaan. TS-Group and Society for MedievalArchaeology in Finland, Turku, pp 281–294

Baird D (2004) Thing knowledge: a philosophy of scientific instruments. University of California Press,Berkeley

Boast R (1997) A small company of actors: a critique of style. J Mater Cult 2(2):173–198Brück J (1999) Ritual and rationality: some problems of interpretation in European archaeology. Eur J

Archaeol 2(3):313–344Brumm A, Boivin N, Fullagar R (2006) Signs of life: engraved stone artifacts from Neolithic South India.

Camb Archaeol J 16(2):165–190Brunnius E (1965 [1731]) Tornion kaupungista ja sen lähipitäjistä (tras. Itkonen, T.), Lions Club, TornioCampbell C (1995) The sociology of consumption. In: Miller D (ed) Acknowledging consumption.

Routledge, London, pp 96–126Cessford G (2001) The archaeology of the clay pipe and the study of smoking. Assemblage 6 [Online]

<http://www.shef.ac.uk/~assem/issue6/Cessford_text_web.htm. [Accessed: 23.02.2007].Chapman J (2000) Fragmentation in archaeology: people, places and broken objects in the prehistory of

South Eastern Europe. Routledge, LondonClark A (1997) Being there: putting brain, body, and world together again. MIT, Cambridge


http://www.shef.ac.uk/~assem/issue6/Cessford_text_web.htm

Clarke ED (1838) Travels in various countries of Scandinavia including Denmark, Sweden, Norway,Lapland and Finland. T Cadell and W Davies, London

Clarke ED (1997 [1838]) Matka Lapin Perukoille 1799 (trans. and commented by Ojala, J.), IdeaNova,Jyväskylä

Cook LJ, Yamin R, McCarthy JP (1996) Shopping as meaningful action: toward a redefinition ofconsumption in historical archaeology. Historic Archaeol 30(4):50–65

Day M (2004) Religion, off-line cognition and the extended mind. J Cognit Cult 4(1):101–121Dellino-Musgrave V (2005) British identities through pottery in praxis: the case study of a Royal Navy

ship in the South Atlantic. J Mater Cult 10(3):219–243DeMarrais E, Gosden C, Renfrew C (eds) (2005) Rethinking materiality: the engagement of the mind with

the material world. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, CambridgeDeSilvey C (2006) Observed decay: telling stories with mutable things. J Mater Cult 11(3):318–338Edensor T (2005) Waste matter: the debris of industrial ruins and the disordering of the material world. J

Mater Cult 10(3):311–332Eilola J (2003) Rajapinnoilla: sallitun ja kielletyn määritteleminen 1600-luvun jälkipuoliskon noituus-ja

taikuustapauksissa. Finnish Literature Society, HelsinkiEvans J (2003) Environmental archaeology and the social order. Routledge, LondonFox GL (2002) Interpreting socioeconomic changes in seventeenth-century England and Port Royal,

Jamaica, through analysis of the Port Royal kaolin clay pipes. Int J Historic Archaeol 6(1):61–78Friberg N (1983) Stockholm I bottniska farvatten: Stockholms bottniska handelsfält under senmedeltiden

ogh Gustav Vasa. En historisk-geografisk studie. LiberFörlag, StockholmGaimster D (1997) German Stoneware 1200–1900: archaeology and cultural history. BritishMuseum, LondonGell A (1998) Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Clarendon, OxfordGraves-Brown P (1995) Stone tools, dead sheep, saws and urinals: a journey through art and skill. In:

Schofield A (ed) Lithics in context: suggestions for the future direction of lithic studies. LithicsStudies Society, London, pp 9–17

Griffin D (2000) Religion and scientific naturalism: overcoming the conflicts. State University of NewYork Press, Albany

Griffiths DM (1978) Use-marks on historic ceramics: a preliminary study. Historic Archaeol 12:68–81Harrison R (2003) “The magical virtue of these sharp things”: colonialism, mimesis and knapped bottle

glass artifacts in Australia. J Mater Cult 8(3):311–336Hartnett A (2004) The politics of the pipe: clay pipes and tobacco consumption in Galway, Ireland. Int J

Histor Archaeol 8(2):133–147Harvey G (2005) Animism: respecting the living world, hurst. LondonHerva V-P (2003) Tornio Keskikatu 29–35, unpublished excavation report, Laboratory of Archaeology,

University of OuluHerva V-P (2005) The life of buildings: Minoan building deposits in an ecological perspective. Oxf J

Archaeol 24(3):215–227Herva V-P (2006a) Flower lovers, after all? Rethinking religion and human-environment relations in

Minoan Crete. World Archaeol 38:586–598Herva V-P (2006b) Marvels of the system: art, perception and engagement with the environment in

Minoan Crete. Archaeol Dialogues 13(2):221–240Herva V-P (2006c) Oulu Pikisaari: historiallisen ajan kaivaustutkimus 15.-26.5.2006, unpublished

excavation report, Laboratory of Archaeology, University of OuluHicks D, Horning A (2006) Historical archaeology and buildings. In: Hicks D, Beaudry MC (eds) The

Cambridge companion to historical archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 272–292Huey PR (1974) Reworked pipe stems: a seventeenth century phenomenon from the site of Fort Orange,

Albany, New York. Historic Archaeol 8:105–111Hutchins E (1995) Cognition in the wild. MIT, CambridgeIkäheimo JP (2006) Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated! Porcelain finds from seventeenth-

eighteenth century Tornio. In: Herva V-P (ed) People, material culture and environment in the North:proceedings of the 22nd Nordic Archaeological Conference, University of Oulu, 18–23 August 2004.University of Oulu, Oulu, pp 398–403

Ingold T (2000) The perception of the environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, LondonJärvilehto T (1998) The theory of the organism-environment system I: description of the theory. Integr

Physiol Behav Sci 33(4):321–334Knappett C (2005) The affordance of things: a post-Gibsonian perspective on the relationality of mind and

matter. In: DeMarrais E, Gosden C, Renfrew C (eds) Rethinking materiality: the engagement of themind with the material world. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, pp 43–51


Kostet J (1982) Ruotsin vallan aikaisia asemakaavakarttoja Pohjan Torniosta. Faravid 6:141–184Kostet J (1995) Cartographia urbium Finnicarum: Suomen kaupunkien kaupunkikartografia 1600-luvulla

ja 1700-luvun alussa. Pohjois-Suomen historiallinen yhdistys, RovaniemiKüchler S (1987) Malangan: art and memory in a Melanesian society. Man (N.S.) 22:238–255Kykyri M (2003) Puurakentaminen Turun kaupungissa. In: Seppänen L (ed) Kaupunkia pintaa

syvemmältä: arkeologisia näkökulmia Turun historian. TS-Group and Society for MedievalArchaeology in Finland, Turku, pp 105–120

Langdon S (2001) Beyond the grave: biographies from early Greece. Am J Archaeol 105(4):579–606Lipponen S (2005) Hirsirakennusten pohjia virastotalon korttelista. In: Kallio T, Lipponen S (eds)

Historiaa kaupungin alla: kaupunkiarkeologisia tutkimuksia Oulussa. Pohjois-Pohjanmaan museo,Oulu, pp 99–102

Lister FC, Lister RH (1981) The recycled pots and potsherds of Spain. Historic Archaeol 15(1):66–78Löfgren O (1997) Scenes from a troubled marriage: Swedish ethnology and material culture studies. J

Mater Cult 2(1):95–113Lucas G (2003) Reading pottery: literature and transfer-printed pottery in the early nineteenth century. Int

J Historic Archaeol 7(2):127–143Lucas G (2006) Historical archaeology and time. In: Hicks D, Beaudry MC (eds) The Cambridge

companion to historical archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 34–47Lucas G (2009) The ceramic revolution in Iceland, 1850–1950. In Symonds J (ed) Table settings: the

material culture and sowcial context of dining in the old and new worlds AD 1700–1900. OxbowBooks, Oxford

Mäntylä I (1971) Tornion kaupungin historia 1: 1621–1809. Tornion kaupunki, TornioMäntylä I (1998) Viinissä totuus: viinin historia Suomessa. Otava, HelsinkiManzotti R (2006) Consciousness and existence as a process. Mind Matter 4(1):7–43Marshall Y, Gosden C (eds) (1999) The Cultural Biography of Objects. World Archaeol 31(2)McCracken G (1988) Culture and consumption: new approaches to the symbolic character of consumer

goods and activities. Indiana University Press, BloomingtonMellanen J (2002) Hollantilaisia tupakkapiippuja. In: Niukkanen M (ed) Sirpaleita suurvalta-ajan

Helsingistä. National Board of Antiquities and Bank of Finland, Helsinki, pp 34–39Merrifield R (1987) The archaeology of ritual and magic. New Amsterdam Books, New YorkMeskell L (2004) Object worlds in ancient Egypt: material biographies past and present. Berg, OxfordMiller D (1987) Material culture and mass consumption. Blackwell, OxfordNiukkanen M (2002) Uuden ajan alun keramiikka varallisuuden mittarina. SKAS 4/2002:35-42Niukkanen M (2007) The form and decoration of redware vessels: functionality and hidden symbolic

meanings. In: Majantie K (ed) Pots and princes: ceramic vessels and stove tiles from 1400–1700.Aboa Vetus and Ars Nova and Society for Medieval Archaeology in Finland, Turku, pp 31–35

Nurmi R (2005) Elämä on peliä—tai sitten ei: omavalmisteisten pelinappuloiden tulkintaa. Muinaistutkija2/2005:24–32

Nurmi R (2009). Shop till you drop—or not: material culture and socioeconomic status in 17th-centuryTornio. In Proceedings of the Second Baltic Archaeology Seminar (BASE 2), University of Vilnius,Lithuania, 20–22 October 2005

Olsen B (2003) Material culture after text: re-membering things. Nor Archaeol Rev 36(2):87–104Orser CE (1996) A historical archaeology of the modern world. Plenum, New YorkPendery SR (1992) Consumer behavior in colonial Charlestown, Massachustts, 1630–1760. Historic

Archaeol 26(3):57–72Perälä V (1921) Lehtiä Tornion kaupungin historiasta. In Tornio 1621–1921. Kirjola, OuluPuputti A-K (2006) Bones, economic strategies and socioeconomic status: an analysis of two bone

assemblages from seventeenth century Tornio. Fennosc Archaeologica 23:47–54Puputti A-K (2007) Ruuanjätteitä tunkiolla: Oulun Pikisaaren kesän 2006 kaivausten eläinluulöydöt.

Faravid 31:9–22Purser M (1992) Consumption as communication in nineteenth-century Paradise Valley, Nevada. Historic

Archaeol 26(3):105–116Rutter J, Davey P (1980) Clay pipes from Chester. In: Rutter J, Davey P (eds) The archaeology of the clay

tobacco pipe III. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, pp 41–272Salo E (2007) Liitupiippujen kuluttaminen Torniossa 1600-ja 1700-luvuilla: keskikadun vuoden 2002

kaivausten liitupiippuaineiston käyttöjälkitutkimus, unpublished MA thesis, Department of ArtStudies and Anthropology, University of Oulu


Sandström Å (1990) Mellan Torneå och Amsterdam: en undersökning av Stockholms roll som formedlareav varor I regional-och utrikeshandel 1600–1650. Kommunstyrelsens kommitté för stockholms-forskning, Stockholm

Sarmela M (1994) Suomen kansankulttuurin kartasto, 2: Suomen perinneatlas. Finnish Literary Society,Helsinki

Scarlett TJ (2002) Consumption. In: Orser CE (ed) Encyclopedia of historical archaeology. Routledge,London, pp 129–132

Schávelzon D (2005) When the revolution reached the countryside: use and destruction of imported waresin Alta Gracia, Córdoba, 1810. Int J Historic Archaeol 9(3):195–207

Scott EM (1997) “A little gravy in the dish and onions in a tea cup”: what cookbooks reveal aboutmaterial culture. Int J Historic Archaeol 1(2):131–155

Spencer-Wood SM (ed) (1987) Consumer choice in historical archaeology. Plenum, New YorkSudbury B (1978) Additional notes on alternative uses for clay tobacco pipes and tobacco pipe fragments.

Historic Archaeol 12:105–107Sullivan L (1896) The tall office building artistically reconsidered. Lippincott’s Magazine, MarchTamelander E (1941) Tornion kaupungin pesäluetteloja 1666–1800. Peräpohjolan ja Lapin kotiseutuyh-

distys, TornioTurner JS (2000) The extended organism: the physiology of animal-built structures. Harvard University

Press, CambridgeTurner JS (2004) Extended phenotypes and extended organisms. Biol Philos 19:327–352Vahtola J (1980) Torniojoki-ja Kemijokilaakson asutuksen synty: nimistötieteellinen ja historiallinen

tutkimus. Pohjois-Suomen historiallinen yhdistys, RovaniemiWalker IC (1976) Alternative uses for clay tobacco pipes and tobacco pipe fragments: some notes. Historic

Archaeol 10:124–127Weiner AB (1992) Inalienable possessions: the paradox of keeping-while giving. University of California

Press, BerkeleyYentsch AE (1991) The symbolic division of pottery: sex-related attributes of English and Anglo-

American household pots. In: McGuire R, Paynter R (eds) The archaeology of inequality. Blackwell,Oxford, pp 192–230

Ylimaunu T (2006) Stone foundations and wooden cellars: material culture and the reproduction of urbanspace in Tornio during the 17th and 18th centuries. In: Herva V-P (ed) People, material culture andenvironment in the North: proceedings of the 22nd Nordic archaeological conference, University ofOulu, 18–23 August 2004. University of Oulu, Oulu, pp 404–411

Ylimaunu T (2007) Aittakylästä kaupungiksi: arkeologinen tutkimus Tornion kaupungista 1600-ja 1700-luvulla. Pohjois-Suomen historiallinen yhdistys, Rovaniemi

Zetterberg P, Pyörälä K, Turunen M (2004) Tornio kaupunkikaivausten puulöytöjen iänmääritys,dendrokronologiset ajoitukset FIL9701 ja FIL9702, unpublished report (ajoitusseloste 241),Laboratory of Dendrochronology, University of Joensuu


Beyond Consumption: Functionality, Artifact Biography, and Early Modernity in a European Periphery

Documents

Transcript of Beyond Consumption: Functionality, Artifact Biography, and Early Modernity in a European Periphery