Early Copper Finds in Northern Fennoscandia

Abstract

A rough casting for a vcry early copper adze, tound not long ago in the interior of Upper Norrland has been shown by analysis to be of very pure copper - 99.4%. The author has used the occasion to study the early use of copper in northern Fennoscandia. The earliest evidence is from ca. 3900 B.C., and in this case there were indications that metal was actually being melted. The copper studied was all of eastern/south-eastern origin; copper began reaching Upper Norrland via south Scandinavia only much later. The author surveys some of the main features in the development of metalworking in the forest region between the Urals and Karelia and also further south. In this vast area are found the preconditions for the production of copper objects in northern Fennoscandia. The material is viewed against the background of an earlier study by the author of the import of north Russian Carboniferous flint into Upper Norrland between the Middle Neolithic and the Epineolithic.