FARMER-PASTORALIST SOCIETIES VERSUS HUNTER-FISHER SOCIETIES
There were marked differences in what I view as the religious practices in the northern and southern parts of Fennoscandia, corresponding to Barnard’s (2007) general distinctions between Mesolithic and Neolithic modes of thought.
On a very general level, rituals in farming (and pastoral) communities are linked to kin groups and forces external to their own social groups, while hunter-gatherer rituals are typically based on sociality. Central aspects of religious practices in the farming communities of southern Fennoscandia were communal rituals which dealt with relationships to powerful ancestors. Other activities, the most important of which were wetland depositions of various artifacts, were most likely associated with powers beyond human society. Among the northern hunter-fishers, the focus was rather on intimate and perhaps transcendent relationships with deceased group members and other beings integral to society, including animals and “others”. The difference in attitude towards the dead is noticeable. The farmers separated the dead spatially, turning the dead into a group and suppressing individual identity; the hunter-fishers kept the dead within the settlement, possibly transferring identities via names (A. Jones 2005).Both groups betray examples of very complex perceptions of entanglements with material culture, occasioning multiple - often situational - associations (e.g. in axes and ochre), and instances where humans either transform or possess a certain hybridity (relative and ancestor; human and clan animal; cosmic travels, etc.). However, while the transformations detected among the farmers appear to have been of a more permanent kind, among the hunter-fishers they may have been more situational and reversible.
While there are distinct differences between the religious practices and beliefs among hunter-fishers and farmer-pastoralist societies, it is important to emphasize that in both cases we are dealing with religions that have developed, changed, and been modified alongside other changes and developments in the respective societies.
The specific religious practices found among the northern hunter-fishers bear a superficial resemblance to earlier practices, both in the European Palaeolithic and earlier phases in the north, but have their own particular forms and logic, as well as regional variations. The farmer-pastoralist religion similarly underwent numerous modifications in the course of time. While this presents a challenge to the interpretation, it is perhaps also through the comparison of practices in time and space that we can best distinguish key elements and the persistence of these elements in prehistoric rituals and religion.SUGGESTED READING
Barnard, A. 2007. “From Mesolithic to Neolithic Modes of Thought”. In Going Over: The Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in North-West Europe (Proceedings of the British Academy 144), A. Whittle & V. Cummings (eds), 5-20. Oxford.
Helskog, K. 1999. “The Shore Connection: Cognitive Landscape and Communication with Rock Carvings in Northernmost Europe”. Norwegian Archaeological Review 32(2): 73-94.
Jordan, P. 2008. “Northern Landscapes, Northern Mind: On the Trail of an ‘Archaeology of Hunter-Gatherer Belief”. In Belief in the Past: Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion, K. Hays-Gilpin & D. S. Whitley (eds), 227-46. Walnut Creek, CA.