"In its analysis of the archaeologies and histories of the northern fringe of Europe, this book provides a focus on animistic-shamanistic cosmologies and the associated human-environment relations from the Neolithic to modern times. The North has fascinated Europeans throughout history, as an enchanted world of natural and supernatural marvels: a land of light and dark, of northern lights and the midnight sun, of witches and magic, and of riches ranging from amber to oil. Northern lands conflate fantasies and realities. Rich archaeological, historical, ethnographic and folkloric materials combine in this book with cutting-edge theoretical perspectives drawn from relational ontologies and epistemologies, producing a fresh approach on the prehistory and history of a region that is pivotal to understanding Europe-wide processes, such as Neolithization and modernization. This book examines the mythical and actual northern worlds, with northern relational modes of perceiving and engaging with the world on the one hand and the 'place' of the North in European culture on the other. This book is an indispensable read for scholars of anthropology and folklore in northern Europe, as well as those with an interest in the political and geographical conflicts that can occur in this region. It provides a deep-time understanding of globally topical issues and conflicting interests, as expressed by debates and controversies around Arctic resources, nature preservation, and indigenous rights"--.

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Northern Exposure
  • The North and the world
  • Relationality, spirituality and the richness of reality
  • Spirituality and magic in the northern world
  • Knowing the world
  • Relationality and the northern world
  • Time, temporality and the longue durée
  • Defining the North
  • A brief outline of the Fennoscandian past
  • The structure of the book
• Part I Land
  • 2 Stone-worlds
    • A race to the Arctic
    • The world inside the rock
    • Crystal cavities and other marvels of the Underworld
    • Cavities and recent folklore in the North
    • Early modern northern mining as dreamwork
    • Disciplining and ordering of the North
    • Mining and magic
    • Dreams of Lapland’s gold
    • The enduring allure of minerals and the Underworld
  • 3 Houses, land and soil
    • Dwellings, people and the cosmos in the North
    • The introduction of the house
    • Pottery, semi-subterranean houses and cultural transformation
    • Early pottery, cultivation and place making
    • Houses and the changing relationship with the underworld
    • Clay work as a means of restructuring human–environment relations
    • Living in an inspirited world
    • The inspirited house
  • 4 Forests and hunting
    • The forest in northern landscapes and mindscapes
    • Engaging with trees
    • Humans and animals in the North
    • Seducing the prey
    • Elk-headed staffs – symbols of Stone Age clans?
    • Sceptres of the shaman?
    • The Bear – the ‘Golden King of the Forest’
• Part II Sea
  • 5 Coastal landscapes and the sea
    • Living with the sea
    • The two Mediterraneans
    • Engaging with changing coastal environments
    • The temporality of Baltic coastal landscapes
    • Otherworldly islands
    • Coastal mazes in the North
  • 6 Boats and waterways
    • The mystery object from a Lapland bog
    • Water and the Otherworld in a northern context
    • Travelling as a spirit fish
    • Blue elks and flying boats
    • Solar boats in razors and rock art
    • Boats for the dead
  • 7 River mouths and central places
    • The real and mythical rivers
    • River mouths as liminal spaces and central places
    • Mythical kingdoms in later prehistory
    • The ‘trader kingdom’ of the birkarls
    • Marketplaces
• Part III Sky
  • 8 Birds and cosmology
    • Migratory birds and changing seasons
    • Birds as persons
    • Birds as guides and soul-birds
    • Cranes and dwarfs
    • Devil’s swans
    • Solar swans?
  • 9 The sun, light and fire
    • People of the Sun
    • Amber and Apollo
    • Worshipping the northern sun
    • The marriage of fire and earth
    • Fire and the hearth in northern cultures
    • Fire and transformation
    • Strange lights in the northern sky
  • 10 Epilogue
    • A world full of life
    • The North and the South
• Bibliography
• Index