March 22, 2013

"The last ice age in the area of the modern-day Finland ended c. 9000 BC."

"Starting about that time, people migrated to the area of Finland from the Kunda and - possibly - Swiderian cultures, and they are believed to be ancestors of today's Finnish and Sami people in Finland."
The oldest confirmed evidence of the post-glacial human settlements in Finland are from the area of Ristola in Lahti and from Orimattila, from c. 8900 BC. Finland has been continuously inhabited at least since the end of the last ice age, up to date.
Finland is today's "History of" country.

22 comments:

Nomennovum said...

I remember reading somewhere that "ice age" is properly defined as a period when there are ice caps at the poles. Thus, we are living in an ice age. It's just that the we are not in a period of extensive glaciation, like we had 10,000 years ago.

edutcher said...

The Finns can hold the unique distinction of having fought just about everybody else in WWII.

Paddy O said...

The country where I want to be...

MadisonMan said...

I recall when my wife and I visited Finland, we went to Turku and -- having no reservations at a hotel -- found St. Birgitta's Convent Guest House. In our minds, before we got there, it was going to be all stone and Medieval, but it ended up being ultra-modern and minimalist.

The spa at Naantali was very nice too -- this was back in the 90s, maybe things have changed -- and had co-ed saunas/turkish baths, but very dim lighting. That took some getting used to. It helped that it was off-season and we were the only Americans there, I think.

I have to say it's disorienting to be in a country where none of the words are remotely familiar.

Methadras said...

Finland is a nice enough place. The food is meh, but at least they are one of the last holdouts for muslim infiltration. Sadly those floodgates are already open.

Anonymous said...

Finland is one of only a handful of countries that routinely has 100% snow cover during the winter. The others are Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. One might think that Canada and Russia would qualify, but they don't: Canada doesn't get much snow around Vancouver, while Russia's Black Sea coast is usually snow-free.

Peter

William said...

When I was a kid, I read all the Mika Waltari historical novels. So you can say that Finnish thought has influenced my life...The Finns damn near defeated the Russians in the early days of their war. This convinced Hitler that the USSR would be a pushover. It was a bank shot, but they thus contributed greatly to the defeat of Hitler.

Alex said...

For those idiots clamoring about global warming, global cooling is FAR worse for humanity.

madAsHell said...

For those idiots clamoring about global warming

oh...you didn't get the memo. It is now called climate change.

Methadras said...

madAsHell said...

For those idiots clamoring about global warming

oh...you didn't get the memo. It is now called climate change.


Sure, that way the leftards can make both cooling or warming a horrible thing.

Synova said...

"I remember reading somewhere that "ice age" is properly defined as a period when there are ice caps at the poles."

In class they called it "ice house" and the ice ages were the periodic cold parts of the cold-warm-cold-warm cycles within the ice house.

And yes, we're in an ice house period and during green house periods there may be no ice at the poles at all.

Emil Blatz said...

Effin' Swiderains!

SJ said...

Wait a minute...does that mean that Väinämöinen had something to do with the end of the Ice Age?

Or did I read that old poetry wrong?

Revenant said...

Finland has the honor of having kicked the crap out of both Stalin AND Hitler during WW2. :)

Pamela said...

At the end of the winter war all Russia wanted was enough land to bury their war dead. Yes we have long dark winters. "Sisu". You must adopt it if you are to live here. The sun is out right now and the snow is melting, but still wear my ice cleats because I hate falling. Yes the food is bland, some of it is good. and we do have a growing Somalia problem. Once you get past their reserved exterior of the people, you find warm helpful people. They love it if you even attempt a word or two!

Terve!

minä asuun Espoossa!

Third Coast said...

There's a large Finn presence in Michigan's UP, especially in the old copper and iron mining areas on the Keweenaw Peninsula and near Marquette. When I was going to school up there in the late 60's there were still Finnish language broadcasts on the local radio stations. Marquette still hosts a Finnfest festival every summer. The UP even has their own Finnish snow god, Heikki Lunta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikki_Lunta).

Roger J. said...

what Madison Man said about the finnish language--apparently closely related to Magyar in Hungary. We spent a vacation in Hungary and difficulty with Magyar. There are very cognates. A great trip nonetheless.

Rusty said...

What's your take on the difference between the three-martini lunch of old and a few bong hits in a dorm room back in the day?

Well for starters I can have my three martini lunch in a restaurant. And the reason I'm downing my lunch is because I have a very good chance of making some money.
And at the end of the lunch I don't have to hear,"Dude. What were we talking about?"

LuAnn Zieman said...

My encounters with anything Finnish are limited to: my first boyfriend moved to Finland after he graduated from high school and sent me the Finnish best seller of 1961,"Seven Brothers" by Aleksis Kivi; my senior high school year 1963-4 we had an exchange student from Finland--Liisa (with 2 i's); and a girlfriend who moved to Finland wrote of her Finnish boyfriend being in the army on ski patrol; one of my roommates in college was from the Iron Range in Minnesota and of Finnish heritage. There are Sami in Norway, too--they're the reindeer handlers.

Anonymous said...

We're hosting a Finnish high school exchange student this year. Sweet, smart girl, speaks excellent English, as do her parents. Maybe once you learn Finnish, any other language seems easy. She's not a big fan of winter in Iowa -- she must get her fill of that in Helsinki.

I tried to read up on Finland ahead of her arrival - other than the World War II stuff, there really isn't that much in English on Finland.

The biggest surprise, to me, is how urban they are. Most of Finland lives in Helsinki, apparently.

ken in tx said...

I had a professor who said that the Finnish word for fire was fugi, and that idicated a great deal of migration between Finland and Japan.

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