In 1671, Queen Dowager Hedwig Eleonora put forward a bill forcing all Sámi nomads living in Sweden south of the mountainous areas to resettle in the far north (Kongl. Maij:ts Placat 9.5.1671). A continuous millennial Sámi habitation in central Sweden was to come to an end (cf. Zachrisson 1997; also Amundsen 2017). Hunting, fishing, and reindeer pastoralism were key economic and social niches for the Sámi across the Fenno-Scandinavian region, and many, but not all Sámi had a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle. (There is, in fact, evidence suggesting permanent or semi-permanent Sámi habitation across all of southern Scandinavia.) This nomadism posed a threat to the Crowns’ ability to control taxpayers in the expanding fiscal state. So the bill was not directed at all Sámi people inhabiting the region but was specifically aimed at the nomadic way of life of Sámi south of the mountainous region.

The bill had another raison d’être, expressed in Sweden’s fear of losing its far-northern subjects—the very people who handcrafted the gloves, hats, and purses for the ever-growing military forces of the expanding Swedish realm. (For who would live in the far north if not the Sámi?) Or as stated in the bill: “a land that could not be farmed and cultivated by anyone else” [my translation] (“…thet Landscapet som af ingen annan än Lappar beqwemligen brukas och cultiveras kan…” Kongl. Maij:ts Placat May 9, 1671).

This bill hailed a process of ethnic homogenization that would become both official and unofficial policy during the nineteenth century. The loss of Finland in 1809 and the founding of the compulsory school system from 1842 laid the foundation for a widespread general understanding of Sweden as a country with unique ethnic and linguistic unity. This perception was further shaped in the century to come through state-funded racial hygiene and scientific racism (see papers in Lindmark and Sundström 2016). The bill of 1671 was one of the first steps toward the process of nation building ramified through education, mapping, museum-founding, and infrastructure, but also through the resettling and assimilation that featured the birth of modern Sweden, as it did in so many other countries (cf. Anderson 1983; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).

During the early modern period, and, as discussed at the end of this paper, well into the end of the eighteenth century, not only Sámi, but a multitude of languages were spoken in Sweden, including Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Karelian, Latin, Norwegian, and Romani. Even after the loss of Finland, a substantial number of Swedish inhabitants continued to speak Finnish and do so even today. Many Sámi languages were spoken in Sweden then, and at least five Sámi languages are currently spoken in Sweden.

As demonstrated throughout this paper, there is evidence that Sámi nomads continued to include central Sweden in their travels until the early twentieth century and that Sámi people have lived more or less permanently in the region since prehistory. The legislation of 1671 forced nomadic Sámi into the north, and the legislative reinforcements of 1720, 1723, 1725, and 1730 each introduced new elements aimed at the movements of nomadic Sámi. Many Sámi were forced to take employment as crafters and hunters for the parishes, under the threat of eviction (Boëthius 1923; HL D 1a:18: 325-326; Kongl. Maij:ts Placat May 9,1671). From the 1730s on, this ethnically defined servitude became known as sockenlappar (Parish Laps; see Svanberg 1999:32-34). The Sámi families had to choose between employment or a forced move to the north—a threat and a practice that would last until the end of the nineteenth century. In at least one case, a group of Sámi from Dalarna County were forced to move to Gävle and from there to Jämtland County (a distance of some 450 miles [724 km] on today’s roads) and then forced to move again to the mountainous region (Boëthius 1923:24-25).

In this paper I analyze archaeological data from early modern Sámi settlements in southern and central Sweden during the early modern period until the brink of the modern period. My aim is to present the cultural diversity of central Scandinavia and to emphasize the potential of historical–archaeological studies in order to reveal knowledge about this multicultural past, with particular emphasis on the Sámi of southern and central Sweden. This is done in a context of a little-studied colonial situation featuring early modern Scandinavia. Many Sámi in southern Sweden were evicted, and their access to land and water were restricted and denied. This colonial practice was not governed by settler colonial societies based on slavery and large-scale land theft, as was the case in the Americas, for instance. Early modern Sweden represents a wider context with a different, yet related history. The different policies toward the Sámi population and the strategies of the Sámi in dealing with the constantly growing pressure from the authorities created a unique facet of early modern colonial policy and practice.

This paper contributes to an ongoing discussion on cultural diversity from the late medieval period to the present and the possibilities for archaeology to provide a nuanced and deepened understanding of this complex history. The paper begins with an analysis of the bill of 1671 addressing the proposed eviction of Sámi from southern and central Sweden and the presentation of early data concerning Sámi habitation in the south. This section is followed by an analysis of the finding of anthropomorphic idols in late medieval contexts, and it is suggested that these idols are related to Sámi rituals. Ritual practice is also traced in linguistic material and through archaeological studies. The prevalence of the bear cult, reindeer husbandry, house offerings, and foodways are seen as examples of Sámi traditions kept in so-called Parish-Lapp households and as examples of both resilience and resistance. The paper concludes with a wider discussion on the resistance and resilience in historical–archaeological studies of Indigenous peoples of the early modern and modern colonial periods from a Transatlantic perspective.

The Sámi and the Realm

The bill of 1671 suggests that a number of Sámi across the realm of Sweden were living nomadic lives, thereby deserting their perceived proper homes in Lapland—the Lappmarker, a geographical division implemented during the late medieval period and expanded during the seventeenth century. The bill of 1671 states that the Lappmarker is the rightful home of the Sámi and that, implicitly, no other people would be able to inhabit the region—probably because of its long and cold winters and harsh environment. The Sámi are forced to return to what is believed to be their proper homes or suffer the threat of imprisonment (Kongl. Maij:ts Placat 9.5.1671; see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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Frontespiece of the Kongl. Maij:ts Placat May 9.1671.

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Until recently, it has not been known if the Sámi addressed by the bill of 1671 and later bills were migrating and impoverished nomads from the far north that included southern and central Sweden in their routes or if they were descendants of members of a south Sámi habitation that had continuously inhabited the region. Over the past few decades, a gathering of data in a combination of archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic studies and surveys have provided researchers with information suggesting a continuity in Sámi habitation in southern and central Sweden from the Iron Age until present day (Bergman 2010; Björck et al. 2021; Larsson 2018; Larsson 2020a, 2020b; Nordin 2018; Svanberg 1999; Zachrisson 1997). This picture is relatively complex, however. Although there is strong evidence suggesting that Sámi had lived in the area for many generations, there are indications that some of the evicted Sámi during the early eighteenth century were newcomers to the region. In 1641, for instance, the archdiocese in Uppsala expresses a wish that nomadic Sámi should return to the north. (Elmén Berg et al. 2021:15) A similar historical–archaeological situation has developed in Norway (Amundsen 2017; Gjerde 2015), whereas the situation in Finland remains understudied (cf. Itkonen 1947).

The expansion of the fiscal state, with its growing demand on taxation and control (and specific to Sweden, a rapid growth of the metal extraction industry) led to a growing pressure on all subjects of the realm, including the Sámi. This situation led to the expansion of the reindeer-herding economy, with larger herds and to proletarization of some Sámi, forcing them to move, become permanent settlers, or obtain employment as reindeer caretakers for the more successful Sámi (cf. Larsson and Päiviö Sjaunja 2021; Lundmark 1982). This process also led to proletarization and pauperization of many Sámi and forcing them to move to the northern coastlands (Elmén Berg et al. 2021). There is no evidence suggesting that this group settling in the south and central Sweden was other than relatively limited, however, and there is no indication of Sámi people from these regions settling in the region discussed in this paper. Future research is needed to cast light on this historic process.

So, to whom was the bill of 1671 directed? The limited group of impoverished Sámi coming from Sápmi’s heartland, or the heterogeneous group of Sámi, who had lived in central Sweden for generations?

The bill of 1671 was just one of several efforts directed at exerting stronger control over all subjects of the Swedish realm, and one of many legislative actions of the rising fiscal state (Bengtsson 2020). By around 1500–1600, laws forcing people into service and creating limitations to freedom of travel were implemented (tjänstehjonstvång, laga försvar in Swedish). In practice, owning a farm, being a burgher, having a title, or being employed were the only legislative foundations for allowing one the status of subject of the Crown. People not belonging to any of the four estates—priests, burghers, peasants, and members of nobility—could be forced into service or imprisoned. Travel was allowed only with a valid passport provided by the authorities (Höijertz n.d.; Johnson 2016). Having an occupation became mandatory, and without a position one could not travel or vote in the parish council (sockenstämman). This situation created a foundation for the recruitment of soldiers and crofters (tenant farmers), and laid a firm foundation for proletarization, feeding the agrarian estates and early industries with cheap labor during the offshoot of industrial society. Three other, ethnically directed bills were passed, regulating the Finnish settlers in Sweden proper (1636); leaving Roma people, with the choice of eviction or execution (1637; Montesino 2010; Tarkiainen 1990); and banishing Sámi people from the southern and central parts of the realm in 1671, a restriction followed by refinements in 1720, 1723, 1725, and 1730 that were also aimed at nomadic Sámi (cf. Svanberg 1999:32-34).

These policies helped to create the perception of a similar past and present: Sámi people are seen as living nomadic lives in the far north in an economy based on reindeer herding. Although this conception is not untrue, it is profoundly simplified and has contributed to a long-lasting perception of Sámi people as distant Others. Yet there is a plethora of evidence of a Sámi habitation in central-southern Fenno-Scandinavia from the Iron Age to the present, and of Sámi people participating in a broad range of occupations and types of livelihood (Gjerde 2015; Hansen and Olsen 2014).

A substantial body of evidence suggests that Iron-Age central Scandinavia included Sámi habitation present in archaeological records and data, and from the later Iron Age to the early medieval period, present in written records. Saga material from the first centuries of the second millennium frequently addresses the presence, roles, and functions of the Sámi in relation to the Norse kings and queens (cf. Aalto 2010; Aalto and Lehtola 2017; Zachrisson 1997:165-171). Most evident is the case of Maiden Snöfrid, daughter of a Sámi chieftain who married Norwegian King Harald Hårfager (ca. 850 to ca. 930 CE), but there are many examples of Sámi princesses marrying Norse aristocrats and kings (Aalto and Lehtola 2017; Gjerde and Bergstøl 2020:170-171; Mundal 2010; Pálsson 1999).

From the high and late medieval period, there is both documented and material evidence of Sámi habitation in southern Finland, southern Norway, and central Sweden (Amundsen 2017; Gjerde 2015). Texts such as town protocols (tänkeböcker in Swedish) hold information about Sámi people of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries living and working in Stockholm and other towns (Nordin 2022). Sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century records of Sámi people in Stockholm suggest a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds from poverty to relative affluence. Sámi names are present in the earliest population registers of the 1620s, initialized by the church, and in court records (Arens 1975; Svanberg 1999). Sámi students attended university during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly Sweden’s first university in Uppsala, and Sámi traders frequented the markets and fairs (Löw 1956:15-18; Rydving 2010). In short: there was a substantial group of Sámi in a wide range of social strata, living far south of the Lappmark border.

Written records concerning Sámi people of central and southern Sweden provide a limited picture of the life and socioeconomic situation of the Sámi people. These records are cursory and generally consist of an entry here and a mentioning there, usually from the perspective of non-Sámi people. Some Sámi seem to have owned farms, some served in the navy, some were training to be priests, others served as entertainers or gamekeepers at the royal court (Björck et al. 2021; Nordin 2018). There is a body of historical–archaeological evidence, albeit scattered, providing evidence of Sámi presence and cultural diversity that has been modestly analyzed. In combination with written records, it presents a rich source of knowledge. Among these sources are loose finds, deserted habitation sites, place names, and oral traditions, suggesting continuous Sámi habitation from the Middle Ages to the present in many parts of central Sweden (Zachrisson 1997).

Sámi, Finns, and “Lapps”

Sámi is an endonym with long history used by Sámi people for themselves; Finn and Lapp are exonyms used by the Scandinavian majority (cf. Aikio 2006). The first written record concerning Sámi is the often-quoted document by Tacit, 98 CE, which refers to the Fenni/Finnoi. The term Skritiphinoi/Skriðfinner occurs for the first time in the sixth century. The Fenni or Finn could thus mean both Sámi and Finlander (someone from Finland or someone speaking Finnish). Finn probably means tracker/hunter or wanderer/nomad; and Skriðfinner denotes the Finns who skriða á skiðum—someone who skies (Bergman 2010; Hansen and Olsen 2014:35-38; Piha 2020). Both denote Sámi.

The year 1000 CE is the first mentioning of Lop (i.e., Laps, probably a Finnish loan word), and in the centuries to come the term spread in what became Sweden and Finland (Hansen and Olsen 2014:35-38). In Norway, the term Finn lingers on. Both the words Finn and Lapp are used throughout the centuries, and it is not always clear if they allude to Finnish- or Sámi-speaking people. The Swedish law of 1328, the so-called Tälje stadga, is the first time Sámi are addressed as lappar in Sweden (SDHK 3558).

Place names that include the words Finn or Lapp are common in Norway and in central and northern Sweden. Many finn names are connected to the so-called Forest Finn settlement movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that comprised mainly of Savonian settlers and practitioners of slash-and-burn agriculture who settled in central Sweden and western Norway during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (cf. Montelius 1960; Wedin 2007). Other finn names may be derived from the man’s name Finn; yet others may be related to people of Sámi extraction. In Norway, the prefix or suffix finn usually denotes Sámi. Place names, ethnonyms, and names of objects or activities including the word Lapp, such as Lapland or Lapp-boot, refer to Sámi people in one way or another. Place names including ren (reindeer, Rangifer Tarandus) may also suggest Sámi dwelling sites. Notably these kinds of words were shaped in exonymic situations to describe where Sámi living quarters or habits, or objects made by Sámi.

Surveying the existence and spread of Lapp and Finn names suggests a way of mapping Sámi historic habitation, and during the past half decade archaeologists have directed field surveys at localities bearing Lapp names. The results are promising. At several locations remains of habitation have been found in the form of oral traditions and in the remains of cabins, hearths, wells, and hunting facilities (Bergman 2010; Björck et al. 2021; Wehlin 2018). Several common traits have been possible to identify: place names suggesting Sámi habitation at peripheral locations in relation to other settlements with good grazing ground for reindeer; deserted tenant farms, wells, and other features alluded to in local oral traditions to Lapps; and the remains of bird-hunting devises and stone constructions, often in hilly forested terrain in central Sweden, suitable for the hunting of forest birds such as Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), Black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix), and Hazel grouse (Tetrastes bonasia; cf. Schefferus 1673:271; Fig. 2) Together these indications suggest relatively widespread and diverse historic Sámi settlement, based on a wide set of economic niches. Along with these socioeconomic traces are indications of Sámi ritual practices in the region.

Fig. 2.
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Photo of a bird hunting device, called Lappstan (i.e., Lapp-town), in Forsa parish, Hälsingland (L1951:4965). Photo: the author.

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Ritual Practice and Resilience

In 1890, as workers were digging for peat, a wooden idol was found in a bog in the village of Nordmyra, Njutånger, Hälsingland County (see Figs. 3 and 4). The idol was found at a ca. 2 m depth; it is 62 cm long, with an anthropomorphic head at one end and a zoomorphic hoof at the other (Fig. 4). The idol is made of spruce, and an old uncalibrated fourteenth-century date suggests the third quarter of the century (SHM inv. no 27 171; Because the number of the sample and the laboratory are unknown, it has been impossible to conduct a hindsight calibration.) Forty years later, another wooden idol was found, again in the context of digging for peat in Sundbornsmossen Bog in Dalarna County, in the vicinity of the major town of Falun (Fig. 5). This anthropomorphic idol is 105 cm long, is made from a pine crotch, and has anthropomorphic features: eyes, mouth, and indications of a nose. This idol was also found at a great depth, indicating great age. Like the Njutånger idol, it was surprisingly dated from the fourteenth to the end of the fifteenth century (Bennström 2006:59; Ua-17970). Along with the idol, hoofs and skin from elk or reindeer were found; they were unfortunately not preserved, however (Serning 1966:85). In contrast to the idol found in Njutånger, the idol from Falun bears a strong resemblance to a wooden idol with similar size and shape found in a cave in Sorsele, Storjuktan, northern Sweden, and associated with Sámi cultic activity (Bergman et al. 2008; Oldeberg 1957:249).

Fig. 3.
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Scandinavia in the eighteenth century with the discussed localities. The line marks, roughly, the location of Sápmi/Saemie.

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Fig. 4.
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Idol from Nordmyra, Njutånger, county Hälsingland (SHM inv. no 27 171). Photo: Swedish History Museum.

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Fig. 5.
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Idol from Sundbornsmossen, Falun, county Dalarna. Photo Pär K. Olsson, Dalarnas museum.

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In Telemark in southern Norway, three anthropomorphic idols of pine, between 1.0 and 1.3 m long have been found, and all three are 14C-dated to tenth and early eleventh centuries (Dahl 2007:35-38) and generally considered to be of Sámi origin. No doubt the wooden idol from Sorsele and the two from Norway are vearomoere or sieidie—sacrificial wooden sticks—or stones with a particular position in the Sámi ritual practice. Earlier research (Oldeberg, 1957; Zachrisson 1997) has suggested a connection between Sámi ritual practices and the idols from Falun and Njutånger. Considering other indications of early Sámi settlement in the region, current research and the growth of knowledge suggests that these idols were made and used in a Sámi context.

In 1998 archaeological fieldwork in the town of Åbo/Turku in Finland revealed a Sámi drum hammer, (South Sámi, vietjere), concealed in a layer of birch bark underneath the floor (Fig. 6). In another room in the same building in a cultural layer of the same date, a 0.7-m-long stick with an anthropomorphic knob had been deposited (Hukantaival 2018:84). The stick was made from juniper and has conspicuous anthropomorphic features but was also decorated with geometrical cut mark ornaments, similar to wide spread tradition in Sámi areas (Fig. 7). In the middle of the stick is a crotch, which, in the context of this well-made object, is quite conspicuous and was probably kept as a decorative detail or perhaps a detail of ritual and/or religious significance, as with other anthropomorphic idols. The excavators proposed that the stick is of Siberian origin (Hukantaival 2018:84; Karvonen 1999:54), but in the light of the drum hammer find and the stick’s resemblance to the sacrificial wooden stick, it suggests Sámi origin.

Fig. 6.
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Drumhammer/ vietjere from Åbo. Photo: Åbo City Museum.

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Fig. 7.
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Stick/sieidie from Åbo. Photo: Åbo City Museum.

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These deposited medieval wooden objects suggests the use of Sámi ritual practice in southern Finland in the early fifteenth century, around the year 1000 in southern Norway and in the fifteenth century in central Sweden. Without more data, it is difficult to present a detailed picture of Sámi presence in this wide region, and it is impossible to tell whether these offerings belong to a nomadic community or to a more sedentary one. And the objects may, of course, have been used by people other than Sámi. Recent archaeological and linguistic studies concerning the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries may help to paint this muddled picture more clearly.

Words of a Lost Language

Around 1771 the informant at Tolvfors Iron Works (see Fig. 3) in County Gästrikland and Carl Linneaus’ Uppsala University student, Per Holmberger, wrote a dictionary of the Lapponum Mendicantium (Soknlapparnas språk in Swedish). Lapponum Mendicantium means “beggar Sámi” and soknlappar alludes to the system of ethnically determined indenture instituted by Queen Dowager Hedwig Eleonora. The group of Sámi interviewed by Holmberger spoke a Sámi language locally adapted to the lower Dalälven region in central Sweden, identifiable by the words for regional fauna and flora. Court records from Tolvfors Iron Works in 1696 mention a conflict over a debt in which a Catherine Cortheu claims a sum of money from Anders Persson Lapp, the husband of her dead sister Anna Philipsdotter Chortheu—a conflict originating with the transaction of a piece of land in 1668 (GD 40, 1696:916-917). The husband was clearly a Sámi married into a Dutch/Walloon family, which reveals that there were already sedentary Sámi at Tolvfors Iron Works a hundred years before Holmbergers’ visit.

Lars-Gunnar Larsson’s linguistic studies have also revealed that the Sámi informants of the early 1770s lived on an economy of handicrafts, reindeer husbandry, hunting, and farming. Larsson (2018:196) suggests that the agricultural terms come from a situation whereby the Sámi had worked as field hands in local agricultural production, or as in the case of Anders Persson, who was probably a landowner himself. The many words connected to crafts also suggest trade with the many iron works in the region—perhaps not only the Tolvfors Iron Works.

Of the 1600 words in Holmbergers’ dictionary, 50 are related to reindeer husbandry, showing the importance of that specific socioeconomic niche. Large-scale reindeer husbandry, as it developed during the seventeenth century in northern Sápmi (the land of the Sámi), and is still practiced today, has come to be a model of the circumstances of reindeer economy. Other forms of reindeer husbandry were widespread during the early modern period, however, and were located in the forested lands (Marklund 1999). Smaller herds of reindeer were seasonally circulated over smaller areas in the woodlands by scattered Sámi groups, as evidenced in the entry in Carl Linneaus’ Iter Lapponicum for May 17, 1732:

Straxt jag var kommen fram om i skogen hinte jag 7 stycken lappar, som körde sina renar 60 à 70, hvilka hade sina späda lamb… Jag frågade dem hur de kommo att vara här nedre. De sade sig här vid hafssidan vara födde och här vilja dö, talte god Svenska (Linneaus 1977 [1732]:18).

No sooner had I entered the forest than I caught up with 7 Lapps who were driving 60 to 70 of their reindeer, and they had young calves with them…I asked them how they came to be right down here and they said that they had been born down here by the coast and wanted to die here. They spoke good Swedish (Linneaus 1995 [1732]:41)

These Sámi who lived down by the coast no doubt had their reindeer grazing in the forests of central part of County Hälsingland, and the size of their herd corresponds to what is known from other Forest Sámi communities (Marklund 1999).

Linneaus’ encounter with the Sámi of Jättendal was brief, but he expressed no doubt about their being Sámi; he evidenced only slight surprise about their language skills and the fact that they were rooted in the coastal area. Linneaus’ student, Holmberger, provided more information 40 years later, however. Holmbergers’ dictionary included entries of ritual significance, such as the word gåudies (no. 142)—drum—in this sense a Sámi ritual drum (Larsson 2018:73). The drum hammer used in the town of Åbo during the early fifteenth century was used on par with the gåudies.

Along with the dictionary, Holmberger documented a version of the traditional bear song, a ritual Sámi song performed at the feast concluding a successful bear hunt (Larsson 2018:193; see also Wiklund 1912 for further discussion). The brown bear (Ursus arctos) holds a particular position in Sámi ritual practice and Sámi religion. The bear song, narratives about the bear, the common use of noa names, and the widespread practice of burying bears in Sámi tradition, are particularly important traits of the bear cult.

The bear cult is found to have been spread across the Fennoscandian region, but the tradition of burying bears in graves was particularly frequent in the south Sámi areas (Zachrisson and Iregren 1974). The bear was feared, respected, and hunted, but the hunt was restricted. The recording of the bear song in Gästrikland County, ca. 1771, suggests that the cult was still in existence by the end of the eighteenth century. No doubt the Sámi encountered by Holmberger, and as suggested by Lars-Gunnar Larsson, lived a distinct Sámi life, encompassing livelihood, traditions, language, and religion. To paint a fuller picture of the extent of Sámi traditions and the role of Sámi ritual practice, archaeological fieldwork has provided important insights.

Domestic Ritual Practice and Everyday Life

In 2017-19, two cabins at Lappatäkten (Lapp field), inhabited between ca. 1786 and ca. 1812, and at Lappens, inhabited between ca. 1840 and ca. 1865, were excavated in Järvsö Parish, in Hälsingland County, central Sweden (see Fig. 3). Both cabins had been inhabited by so-called Parish Sámi (sockenlappar in Swedish). The Lappatäkten cabin was situated some 3 km east of the village of Järvsö, as a croft (tenant farm) on the Kristoffers’ farmland. Local historians had identified the name on an 1806 cadastral map and acknowledged the foundation of a cabin and the remains of a cellar (L1948:7930; Fig. 8). The map also showed a small agricultural field in a clearance in the woods, with a vague symbol for a house with the text: Lappmannens stuga (the Sámi man’s cabin; LMA:21-jär-110, s. 101).

Fig. 8.
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Foundation of the croft at Lappatäkten during excavation 2018. Photo Länsmuseet Gävleborg, spridningstillstånd LM 2019/020491.

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The Sámi family of Julius Andersson (1726-97) and Brita Clemensdotter (1726 to early 1790s) lived in this house with their daughter Anna Juliusdotter (1759-1807), who later married the Sámi man, Nils Andersson (d. 1806). Julius served as sockenlapp (Parish Lapp), a position later assumed by his son-in-law, Nils (Björck and Blennå 2020:10). No contract for their employment is preserved, and little is known of their specific tasks. The family members were probably crafters—a reasonable assumption, given that five thimbles were found along with glass beads, glass buttons, and tin thread for metal embroidery, probably used in the making of leather purses and traditional Sámi crafts (Björck and Blennå 2020:27-32). Leather craft and basket making were widespread among the sockenlappar (Svanberg 1999:88-93)

Oral history and local traditions indicate that both Julius Andersson and Nils Andersson were known as successful hunters of bear and lynx (Edsman 1994:81). They probably also hunted wolves, although there is no record of their doing so. The family had reindeer, but how many and of what importance they held for their livelihood is not known. A court case in which nearby farmers complained that the reindeer had destroyed their planted farmland is the only indication of reindeer husbandry (Björck and Blennå 2020:23). Zoo-osteological analysis of animal bones from the cottage presented finds of an unidentified Ungulate and an unidentified Cervidae, both of which, particularly the latter, are probably from reindeer, given that red deer and roe deer were absent in the forests of Hälsingland during the early modern period (Liljegren and Lagerås 1993:43; Yom-Tov et al. 2011).

The cabin also yielded finds of brown bear (Ursus arctos) bones: one talus, one carpus, and one probable metatarsus—smaller bones of the paws that are not part of the meat-rich parts of the animal. One of the bones was deposited in the inner walls of the chamber (the smaller room), together with the copper alloy pendant, probably from a gåudies, a Sámi ceremonial drum. Split horse bones were also found in the same context. The praxis of including bear bones in the domestic environment may be linked to traditions connected to the bear hunt, as exemplified through the bear song and the tradition of burying bears (Wiklund 1912; Zachrisson and Iregren 1974).

The bear held a special position in Sámi ritual practice. The bear was seen as both fierce and threatening, yet was viewed as a distant relative with specific supernatural qualities (Sommerseth 2021:22-24). The fact that the bear hibernates, thereby disappearing in the autumn, only to return in the spring, has, together with its size and strength, granted the bear this particular mythical and border-transgressing position. The special role of the bear is also confirmed in other contexts and spread outside of the Sámi communities. Bear claws are found in prehistoric graves and deposited in urban dwellings, as in the Aboa Vetus and Ars Nova site in Åbo, where a bear claw was found in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century context (Hukantaival 2021:10).

Sámi tradition allowed for the hunting and eating of bear, on the condition that certain rules were respected. After the hunt and the cooking of the bear (an activity forbidden to women), the uneaten parts of the bear were buried with its bones arranged in order, so it would be able to resurrect (Fjellström 1755; Zachrisson and Iregren 1974:11-14, 79-80). Bear graves dating from the mid-Iron Age until the early modern period have been found all over Scandinavia, and bear bones have been found on ritual offering sites (Sommerseth 2021:24-27). The last record of ritualized bear-hunt activities, including burial of the remains of a bear stem from Arjeplog/Árjapluovve, in the 1828 accounts of a German tourist, Daniel von Hogguér (1841).

The finding of deposited bear bones in the cabin in Järvsö, which was inhabited by renown bear hunters, may at first come as a surprise. The life of the Sámi as involuntary permanent dwellers under servitude of the large landowners may at first suggest an abandonment of religious and ritual practices, but the bear bones that were tucked away suggest the opposite. A heart-shaped pendant had been deposited adjacent to one of the bear bones, attached to a chain and a string of leather (Fig. 9; Björck and Blennå 2020:17-18). The pendant closely resembles several similar pendants attached to Sámi drums from south and/or central Sámi regions (Åsele and Ume Lappmarker; cf. Manker 1938:267-269). The other pendant was found near the threshold and may well have been attached to a drum.

Fig. 9.
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Two heart shaped pendants of copper alloy, originally probably attached to ceremonial drums. Photo Bengt Grundvig, Länsmuseet Gävleborg.

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The connection between drum practice and the bear hunt is relatively well known from several sources. Johannes Schefferus mentions the bear song, for instance, together with the use of the drum (Schefferus 1956 [1673]:262; see also Fjellström 1755). Schefferus also connects the bear-hunting tradition to the crafting of tin thread, an activity that was also represented among the finds from the cabin (Schefferus 1956 [1673]:268). Sámi drum practice was considered by Lutheran pastors to be tokens of magic, or even the devil’s work. The use of drums was prosecuted beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century, culminating in the mass collection and systematic stealing of drums in the eighteenth century (Rydving 1991, 1993; Willumsen 2013).

Close to where the bear bones and the drum pendant were found, and in the same stratigraphic sequence, split horse bones were also recovered. Although the eating of horse meat has long been considered all but taboo in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe (Egardt 1962; see, however, Lyublyanovics 2018), and although it is not central to Sámi practices, some Sámi did eat horses. The killing, butchering, and skinning of horses were an ordinary task for the sockenlappar—activities loathed by the majority society and commonly undertaken only by social outcast.

The more recent cabin, Lappens (meaning “the Sámi’s”—in this case, the Sámi’s dwelling), was inhabited by the Stenlund family from 1815 or 1820 to ca. 1880 and was located some additional 4 km east of Lappatäkten on the croft that the Stenlunds rented on Kristoffer’s estate (Fig. 10). The first inhabitants were Margareta Nilsdotter and Mattias Stenlund. Margareta was daughter of Nils Andersson and Anna Juliusdotter at Lappatäkten and their six children. Mattias Stenlund died around 1851, and the position of sockenlapp was taken over by his son, also named Mattias, who was also a musician and a bear hunter. He was known as Björnmattis (Bear-Mattis; Edsman 1994:81). Given the small fields surrounding the cabin, the household must have lived on small-scale agriculture. (A scythe was also found at the excavation.) Horse butchery seems to have been an important economic activity, as indicated by the finds of split horse bones and a decorative piece of iron that would have been mounted on top of a saddle bow. Among the zoo-osteological materials were finds of squirrel bones, suggesting that fur hunting was an activity still practiced at Lappens. No reindeer bones were found, although the existence of fragmented, undefined, larger ungulate bones supposedly came from reindeer husbandry.

Fig. 10.
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The remains of the cabin at Lappens at the time of excavation. My photograph.

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There are indications of crafting at the more recent cabin as well: an unused purse frame in copper alloy was found, suggesting that leather and textile handicrafts and the making of purses was one of the livelihoods of the Stenlund family. At both cabins were found natural but perfectly or near-perfectly round stone orbs of various sizes, roughly 2-5 cm in diameter (Fig. 11). The stone is naturally smoothed glacial granite from an esker and not found locally. At the more recently built cabin, these finds of orbs were concentrated on the wall adjacent to the vestibule, indicating that they were in use at the entrance or deposited there. Their smooth features suggest that they had been used as glossing or smoothing stones, but their limited size and their number suggest other means of use, as one would typically need only one or two glossing stones in their home. Sonja Hukantaival (2021:10-11) has acknowledged the existence and cultic use of stone orbs in late medieval and early modern Åbo and described how they were deposited underneath the wooden floors in several houses, just as they were at Lappens. It is not possible to tell whether the stone orbs were used as toys, as smoothing stones connected to the leather craft, or as ritual objects, but the spread of the practice over time and in space suggest a deeper cultural meaning of the stone orbs in Scandinavia.

Fig. 11.
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Stone balls or orbs, found at Lappens. Photo: Gävleborgs museum.

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At both cabins were found house offerings, another form of domestic ritual practice in the form of coins deposited at or in the vicinity of the cornerstones. At Lappatäkten only one coin was recovered: a copper penny from 1761 and the reign of King Adolf Fredrik, found at the southeastern corner. The two coins at Lappens, one copper ¼ penny dated 1808, from the reign of King Gustav IV Adolf and a heavily worn copper coin from the reign of Karl XIV Johan, perhaps from 1825, were found adjacent to the southwestern cornerstone (Björck and Blennå 2021:12-13). The dates of the coins correspond to the documentary evidence of both settlements.

Locally produced red earthenware dominated the ceramics at Lappatäkten, whereas the ceramics at Lappens were primarily creamware, both imported and domestic. The tobacco pipes, including 41 sherds (out of 279 registered finds) from the older cabin, were heavily used cheap pipes, underlining the poverty of the inhabitants. Of the 207 registered finds at the newer site, there were only four pipe stems (Björck and Blennå 2020, 2021:25-31).

Another indication of poverty is Nils Andersson’s probate record at Lappatäkten (1806), which mentioned only a few things, such as bed linen, but it also includes three silver objects: two cups and a chain (Björck and Blennå 2020:10). The existence of silver objects can indicate a certain level of fortune, but it may also be an indication of poverty. People without property may be forced to put their savings into the form of precious metal objects. People with means, owning an estate, would have their finances more or less secured through the estate.

Material culture suggests a difference between the two settlements, a difference underlined by historic evidence. According to baptismal and marriage certificates, some witnesses came from remote areas of Hälsingland and even from adjacent counties, suggesting that the families in Lappatäkten lived a relatively ambulant life. The non-Sámi witnesses all came from the vicinity, whereas the Sámi clearly belonged to a geographically widespread network (Karlström n.d.:27-29). The change in witnesses may come from the change in the Sámi’s situation; by the end of the eighteenth century, Lappatäkten still had reindeer—an economy forcing a more ambulant life, and a situation that, according to all sources, had changed in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

The cabin at Lappens was abandoned and torn down sometime after 1865, never to be rebuilt and the land resettled. The second half of the nineteenth century marks drastic changes in Swedish society. In 1865, parliamentarism was introduced, along with liberalization of the economy, and by the end of the nineteenth century, democratic reforms had been introduced, and the 1671 law that created the foundation for Parish Sámi was finally abolished. Results for the two excavated crofts suggest a difference in traditions and ritual practice among the Sámi in Järvsö Parish. But the data also suggest continuity. Handicrafts continued to be a key occupation at Lappens. At both Lappens and Lappatäkten bears were hunted and horses were eaten. Stone orbs were used in the day-to-day rituals, and the custom of depositing coins when erecting a new house was practiced at both sites. Reindeer husbandry was one activity that no longer existed at Lappens. There is a lack of evidence of drums, suggesting that the drum-ritual practice was abandoned during the early nineteenth century and not practiced by the Stenlund family. A strong cultural and traditional resilience among the Sámi are suggested by their activities, represented by the remains of crafts, animal husbandry, butchery, and hunting, together with traces of ritual practices at both sites and the connection to earlier traces of Sámi habitation in southern and central Sweden.

Indenture and Historical Archaeology

Historical archaeologists have a long tradition of studying ethnical diversity, cultural interaction, and their correspondence with material culture. Hybridity has long been a widely used concept, suggesting how to work with cultural and social interaction in colonial and/or hierarchical historic situations. The concept of hybridity has also proven useful in studies of material culture. Postcolonial interests in the role of hierarchical relations of colonial situations has encouraged this focus (cf. Bhabha 1994). As Stephen Silliman (2015) has noted, however, some problems exist in archaeologists’ use of the concept of hybridity, suggesting that it reifies hierarchical relations between colonizers and the colonized. Instead of trying to acknowledge the power and agency of the disenfranchised, archaeologists too often do the opposite, writing archaeologies of the domination, often victorious groups, and the acculturation of Indigenous peoples. Instead of trying to criticize traditional views on “dying” cultures, archaeologists have, according to Silliman, reified the notion of the cultural poverty of Indigenous peoples.

When the concept of cultural hybridity was introduced broadly in archaeology in the 1990s and 2000s through the works of Homi K. Bhabha (1994), it soon created an opening for archaeologists to study colonialism and colonization processes through a lens of interaction and collaboration, while emphasizing the inequality of colonial encounters. Differences could be traced in similarities and vice versa. Individual and/or group agency could be traced outside the monoliths of “culture” (cf. Silliman 2015). Historical archaeology has a long way to go before the diversity within early modern societies and within systems of colonialism are fully accepted. The many traces of Sámi from late medieval to the near-present time provides a set of examples of historical archaeological challenges that cannot be understood merely as ephemeral and marginal or hybridized.

Of profound importance in ethnic studies has been Fredrik Barth’s (1969) axiomatic claim that ethnic identity is forged and negotiated in meetings with others and through boundaries between and among people. Barth (1969:10) acknowledges that “cultural differences can persist despite inter-ethnic contact and interdependence,” just as is shown with the use and development of traditions among the Sámi in southern and central Scandinavia. In the study presented here, the resilience of Sámi ritual and social practices suggests that similar processes can be identified at many more levels in other past societies, and that diverse identities and traditions may develop alongside each other and fecundate each other. The study of the Sámi of southern and central Scandinavia suggest that several traditions were developing simultaneously: the majority culture of Swedes, Finns, and several others, and as demonstrated here, the Sámi. Moreover, this study indicates a high level of intimacy involved in meetings and collaborations during the last decades of the seventeenth century among Dutch/Walloon, Swedes, and Sámi, as in the case of the Cortheu family and Anders Persson Lapp.

Key words for understanding these complex processes are practice, production, and crafts. Heather Law-Pezzarossi (2015) has demonstrated the importance of crafts, particularly basket making, among the Nipmuc of the American northeast during the nineteenth century (Law-Pezzarossi 2015). Limited written and material evidence may tell about the identity of many Native American settlements, but by looking at households and the activities conducted there, Law-Pezzarossi (2014, 2015) has highlighted a surprising resilience among the Nipmuc (cf. Bagley et al. 2014; Liebmann 2015). Indigenous crafts, particularly basketmaking, constituted key economic activities that forged resilience and generated resistance, just like tin threading, purse making, and wild-game hunting among southern Sámi.

The results from this historical archaeological study of Sámi people of early modern central and southern Scandinavia suggests a strong resilience in socioeconomic strategies, language, religion, and ritual. Looking at the Sámi families living in the region from late medieval to modern periods and looking at the material remains of the Andersson and Stenlund families, it seems clear that these families were not acculturated, their material culture was not hybridized, and their way of life was not determined solely by adaptation to the majority society (cf. Rubertone 2000). Archaeological and linguistic data suggest that the Sámi families of Järvsö had deep local and regional histories

Evidence is clear that the life of Sámi in central and southern Sweden were both strongly restricted and conditional after the legislative reforms starting in 1671, but further emphasized in 1720, 1723, 1725, and 1730, (Boëthius 1923; Kongl. Maij:ts Placat 9.5.1671; Svanberg 1999:32-35). At the same time, cultural and traditional traits were maintained, as seen in the management of bear bones, drum practice, crafts, and reindeer husbandry. This long and continuous resilience of both sedentary and nomadic Sámi lifestyles suggests active resistance against the local, regional, and national authorities, but also hidden or tacit resistance. James C. Scott (1990) has examined the manifold ways of exercising resistance in the early modern society through violence and uprisings, in order to change an often-victimized life situation as a slave, an indentured servant, or a proletarized worker. Scott’s development of the concept of hidden transcript as day-to-day resistance, captures many of the strategies and activities identified among the late medieval and early modern Sámi discussed in this paper. On August 13, 1784, a call was published in Post och Inrikes Tidningar, Sweden’s leading newspaper at the time. It addressed the question of what should be done with the nomadic Sámi in the southern part of the realm? Over a hundred years after the first bill of forced movement, Sámi people were still there. Living their lives—conditionally, yes; but dying, no.

Conclusion

Material and nonmaterial evidence, including place names, depictions, itineraries, abandoned settlements, and material culture suggest a long continuity in the Sámi inhabitation of southern and central Scandinavia—particularly Sweden. Data presented in this paper suggested a deep and widespread cultural and ethnic diversity. Furthermore, the study unveiled a developed ability to keep social networks alive over long distances. This long continuity in the use of ritual and religious practice, including the drum practice, the role of the bear, hunting activities, and crafts suggest a hitherto-unacknowledged resilience and resistance against the majority society. This paper presents a challenge for future researchers: to examine what happened with the Sámi who were jointed to the parishes but were allowed to move through the processes of democratization during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Where did they go? Scattered data indicate that many lived on in southern and central Sweden, suggesting that the medieval and early modern diverse society lingers and enriches present-day society.

This study was based on a wide set of sources from the late medieval period to the end of the nineteenth century; it focused on a survey of traces of Sámi habitation in southern Scandinavia, with an emphasis on Sweden. Historic sources, stretching from the Sagas to court and church records suggest a continuity in the presence of Sámi people throughout southern Scandinavia. Place names emphasize widespread sedentary and nomadic habitation. Finds of ritual depositions of wooden idols in the countryside and in urban contexts and the fifteenth-century Sámi drum hammer found in Åbo/Turku point to the exercise of Sámi ritual practices.

These findings suggest a widespread and profound diversity in southern and central Scandinavia, particularly in Sweden, unrecognized in previous research. The bread and butter of the historical archaeologist—the written, the oral, the depicting, the ethnohistorical, the linguistic, the spatial, and the material evidence—provide a canvas hitherto unexamined by researchers. It is only through a combination of sources and the use of mixed methods that it is possible to write a deeper history of this otherwise ephemeral past.

The rise of the seventeenth-century fiscal state led to a legislative pressure against nomadism, and Lutheran orthodoxy shaped missionary activities against Sámi religion and ritual practice. Legislations from 1671, 1720, 1723, 1725, and 1730, emphasized a ban on nomadic economy and forced many Sámi living in southern and central Sweden either to be evicted to Lapland or to assume service as part of an indentured workforce under the goodwill of the parishes. In recent years two crofts of so-called Parish Sámi from the late eighteenth to late nineteenth centuries have been excavated. The material culture that these excavations revealed suggests that many Sámi inhabitants remained in central and southern Sweden and developed their Sámi traditions through such economic undertakings and socioeconomic niches as game hunting, crafts, reindeer husbandry, and ritual practices.