What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#526

Post by CanKiwi2 » 11 Mar 2013, 02:25

Next Post will be in a week or so. Work is rather hectic at the moment, so my apologies for being a little less prolific than usual with my posts.

That said, thanks to everyone who has kept on reading over the last two and a half years (I just realised this thread has surpassed 70,000 views so I thought a word of appreciation to everyone who reads this and keeps me motivated to write was in order :D ).
ex Ngāti Tumatauenga ("Tribe of the Maori War God") aka the New Zealand Army

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#527

Post by CanKiwi2 » 13 Mar 2013, 20:29

The Magdalenian culture (16,000 BC to 8,000 BC)

As the glaciers slowly receded from Europe between about 16,000-13,000 years ago, the continent began to be slowly repopulated by people from the southern refugia, leaving identifiable genetic signatures. Some Y haplogroup I clades appear to have diverged from their parental haplogroups sometime during or shortly after the LGM. Haplogroup I2 is prevalent in the western Balkans, as well as the rest of southeastern and central-eastern Europe in more moderate frequencies. Its frequency drops rapidly in central Europe, suggesting that the survivors bearing I2 lineages expanded predominantly through south-eastern and central-eastern Europe. From an mtDNA perspective, Richards et al. found that the majority of mtDNA diversity in Europe is accounted for by post-glacial re-expansions during the late upper Palaeolithic/ Mesolithic. "The regional analyses lend some support to the suggestion that much of western and central Europe was repopulated largely from the southwest when the climate improved. The lineages involved include much of the most common haplogroup, H, as well as much of K, T, W, and X." The study could not determine whether there were new migrations of mtDNA lineages from the near east during this period; but a significant input was deemed unlikely.

In western Europe, the Solutrean culture was succeeded by what is known as the Magdalenian culture, dating from around 18,000 BP to 10,000 BP, towards the end of the last ice age. This culture soon supersedes the Solutrean area and also the Gravettian of Central Europe. However, in Mediterranean Iberia, Italy and Eastern Europe, epi-Gravettian cultures continue evolving locally. The Magdalenian is synonymous in many people's minds with reindeer hunters, although Magdalenian sites also contain extensive evidence for the hunting of red deer, horse and other large mammals present in Europe towards the end of the last ice age. The culture was geographically widespread, and later Magdalenian sites have been found from Portugal in the west to Poland in the east. Typologically the Magdalenian is divided into six phases which are generally agreed to have chronological significance. The earliest phases are recognised by the varying proportion of blades and specific varieties of scrapers, the middle phases marked by the emergence of a microlithic component (particularly the distinctive denticulated microliths) and the later phases by the presence of uniserial (phase 5) and biserial “harpoons” (phase 6) made of bone, antler and ivory.

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Location map of Homo Sapiens during Magdalenian culture, between 19,000 ~ 12,000 BP. French version

The earliest Magdalenian sites are all found in France, however later phases of the Magdalenian are synonymous with the human re-settlement of north-western Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum during the Late Glacial Maximum. Research in Switzerland, southern Germany and Belgium has provided AMS radiocarbon dating to support this. However being hunter gatherers Magdalenians did not simply re-settle permanently in north-west Europe - they often followed herds and moved depending on seasons. By the end of the Magdalenian, the lithic technology shows a pronounced trend towards increased microlithisation. The bone harpoons and points have the most distinctive chronological markers within the typological sequence. As well as flint tools, the Magdalenians are best known for their elaborate worked bone, antler and ivory which served both functional and aesthetic purposes including perforated batons. The sea shells and fossils found in Magdalenian sites can be sourced to relatively precise areas of origin, and so have been used to support hypothesis of Magdalenian hunter-gatherer seasonal ranges, and perhaps trade routes. Cave sites such as the world famous Lascaux contain the best known examples of Magdalenian cave art. The site of Altamira in Spain, with its extensive and varied forms of Magdalenian mobillary art has been suggested to be an agglomeration site where multiple small groups of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers congregated. With the Magdalenian culture, Paleolithic development in Europe reaches its peak and this is reflected in the advanced art of this culture.

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Cave sites such as the world famous Lascaux contain the best known examples of Magdalenian cave art.

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Magdalenian Hands – I find it fascinating that these are impressions of the hands of the people that lived here so many thousands of years ago. What went through their minds as they painted these impressions? What were there intentions? For all of that though, there are no “boat” illustrations in Magdalenian cave art.

In summary, the Magdalenian culture appeared in western Europe after the last glacial maximum, became the dominant culture of western Europe and spread outwards to Central Europe, including Bohemia and Moravia (about 13,000 years ago). It was a culture associated above all with reindeer and was typical of Arctic-type hunters. The conventional view is that the Magdalenian culture “disappeared” as the cool, near-glacial climate warmed and the animal herds the communities depended upon became scarce. It’s probably fairer to say that the peoples of the Magdalenian culture modified their toolsets, lifestyles and behaviors as an adaptation to changing climatic conditions, with some cultural fragmentation occurring. What were these changing climatic conditions?

As the climate became warmer during the Late Glacial Maximum, much of the North Sea and English Channel was an expanse of low-lying tundra, extending around 14,000 years as far as the modern northern point of Scotland. Evidence including the contours of the present seabed shows that after the first main Ice Age the watershed between North Sea drainage and English Channel drainage extended east from East Anglia then southeast to the Hook of Holland, not across the Strait of Dover, and that the Thames, Meuse, Scheldt and Rhine rivers joined and flowed along the English Channel dry bed as a wide slow river which at times flowed far before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The final retreat of the glaciers about 19,000 years ago drew human settlements northward, reaching the Arctic Ocean about 11,000–9000 years ago. The late Paleolithic population of hunters and fishers living in the Periglacial zone was always small and well spread out, as is took at least ten square kilometres of land to support one person. It is theorized that at this time no large migrations occurred within the already populated areas and population movement took place only onto the unpopulated land that was freed from beneath the glacial icecap as it retreated northwards.

We can also see the impact of natural disasters in this time period - these natural disasters included major volcanic activity in the central part of Europe in what is now western Germany on the Eiffel plateau 13,000 to 11,000 years ago, when a large part of what is now Germany was covered with ash and rocks. The most powerful explosion was from the Laach volcano 13,000 years ago, which seriously damaged local plant cover and drove away game animals. Archaeologist Hans-Peter Schulz theorizes that people also fled the disaster area, and, based on archaeological finds, may have fled as far away as central Russia. It could be expected that during this flight people also fled northwards into the periglacial Baltic area. After a volcanic eruption, vegetation is restored relatively quickly. Because of this, we can assume that populations wandered back and forth between the area of the natural disaster and the neighbouring territories. This tendency served to mix together various human populations and allowed for the consolidation of human genetic types and numerous incidents of language contact throughout the heart of Europe.

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Reindeer Hunters of the Magdalenian - hunting with spear-throwers. The Magdalenian communities were specialized reindeer hunters, and in coastal areas later turned to sea-mammal hunting using distinctive bone harpoons.

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Magdalenian bone harpoons

Indigenous Europeans – circa 10,000 BCE

Now recall the earlier findings that Finns, Saami and Basques are European “genetic outliers.” It would seem from the evidence that the indigenous people of Europe that inhabited Southern Europe at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the “Magdalenians”, were the ancestral Basques and Finno-Ugrics. Given the genetic traces, it is probable that these two groups met each other, as there are few impediments to travel north of Spain. Regardless, the Glacial Refuge hypothesis states that, after the glaciations, the survivors of the Cro-Magnon peoples in the European continent searched for warmer places, such as the present-day Ukraine and the southwest of the continent, settling in the region of the Pyrenees and the south of France, due the mitigation of the cold due to the Foehn effect. These people of these settlements near the Pyrenees were the proto-Basque people. Starting around 16,000 BCE, the warming climate allowed the expansion of proto-Basque groups across southern Europe and into Britain. At this time also occurred the expanding the Magdalenian culture across Europe. This hypothesis is supported by three different research works, one of them genetic (based on the studies of Forster and Stephen Oppenheimer), the other two linguistic (the works of Theo Venneman). The Finnish linguist Kalevi Wiik proposed in 2008 that the current Basque language is the remainder of a group of "Basque languages" that were spoken in the Paleolithic over much or all of western Europe and that retreated in the face of the advance of the Indo-European languages (more on this theory later). According to Wiik, this theory coincides with the homogeneous distribution of the Haplogroup R1b in Atlantic Europe (recall the genetic clines and haplogroups listed earlier).

In the linguistics area there are two lines of investigation, both based on etymology; one on toponyms, not only in the Basque Country but also in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe, and the other on the proper etymology of the Basque words – but seeing as this is not our main area of interest, we’ll steer away from this topic, interesting as it is. However, it’s interesting to note that at about 10,000 years ago, when humans had not begun to shift from food consumption (hunting and fishing) to food production (farming and livestock), the entire world-wide human population numbered about 5 and at most 10 million people. The population of hunters and fishers living in the Periglacial zone was small and spread out, as it took roughly ten square kilometres of land to support one person in a hunter-gatherer society (with an estimated 5-10,000 people at most inhabiting the area of the British Isles). When we look at languages, it is estimated that at this time, something like 12,000 distinct languages existed at this time, with each language spoken by a collective of about 500-1000 people, as is true of Australian aborigines in modern times – although many of these languages, as today, would have had common origins.

Ref also http://www2.ku.edu/~lba/documents/2011/ ... n%20of.pdf (Paternal Genetic History of the Basque Population).

Immediate Post-Magdalenian Cultures

The Magdalenian culture (arctic reindeer hunting – and don’t forget the harpoons) lasted from approximately 18,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago and as we have seen, expanded northwards and into central Europe as climatic conditions improved somewhat. Now also keep in mind that this was culture existed in the periglacial areas bordering the icesheets, with large glacial lakes and waterways – ideal for fishing, the hunting of sea-life such as seals and of waterfowl. These areas would have been rich in sources of food, and from the available evidence, the peoples that lived in these areas certainly took advantage of this. Let’s take a quick look at these cultures that existed circa 10-12,000 years ago along the periphery of the Scandinavian ice sheet.

Magdalenian culture persisted until circa 8,000 years ago, when it rapidly evolved into two microlithist cultures: Azilian, in Spain and southern France, and Sauveterrian, in northern France and Central Europe. Though there are some differences, both cultures share several traits: the creation of very small stone tools called microliths and the scarcity of figurative art, which seems to have vanished almost completely, being replaced by abstract decoration of tools. In the late phase of this Epipaleolithic period, the Sauveterrean culture evolves into the so-called Tardenoisian and influences strongly its southern neighbour, clearly replacing it in Mediterranean Spain and Portugal.

Looking to the north, by about 8,000 years ago the north-facing coastal area of Doggerland (now the North Sea) had a coastline of lagoons, salt marshes, mudflats and beaches, together with inland streams, rivers, marshes and sometimes lakes. It may have been the richest hunting, fowling and fishing ground in Europe available to the Mesolithic culture of the time and as such was in all probability inhabited by an ancestral European population. As sea levels rose after the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, Doggerland became submerged beneath the North Sea, cutting off what was previously the British peninsula from the European mainland by around 8,500 years ago. Key stages are now believed to include the gradual evolution of a large tidal embayment between eastern England and Dogger Bank by 7,000 years ago, and rapid sea level rise thereafter, leading to the Dogger Bank becoming an island and Great Britain being finally physically disconnected from the continent.

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The area known as Doggerland which lay between the British Isles and the European continent.

A recent hypothesis is that much of the remaining coastal land, already much reduced in size from the original land area, was flooded by a tsunami around 8,200 years ago, caused by a submarine landslide off the coast of Norway known as the Storegga Slide. This theory suggests "that the Storegga Slide tsunami would have had a catastrophic impact on the contemporary coastal Mesolithic population..”. Following the Storegga Slide tsunami, it appears, Britain finally became separated from the continent, and in cultural terms, the Mesolithic there goes its own way. As we have seen, after this cold peak the climate grew milder, but with occasional intervening periods of harsh cold. Gradually people began returning to the regions they had abandoned thousands of years before. Meanwhile, the ice cap progressively withdrew northwards, opening up new territory for settlement. Today’s Finland (the area inhabited by Finns, Karelians and Lapps, between Norway and Lake Onega) was almost totally buried under a continental ice sheet during the colder climatic periods, just as Greenland is today. Gradually, the ice sheet melted and its southern margin retreated farther and farther north. As the ice load grew thinner and vanished, the earth's crust began to rise - a process that has continued to this day, most markedly along the Gulf of Bothnia. During that process, the Finnish peninsula slowly rose out of the sea, first forming solitary islands, then chains of islands, and, finally, a clearly defined extension of the continent. The retreating glaciers striated the bedrock, leaving behind vivid evidence of the ancient geologic processes; and, during the melting stage, clay accumulated in annual layers, and pollen grains were preserved in peat, thus bearing further witness to the vicissitudes of Nature. Through the study of such phenomena, geologists have been able to deduce the origins of Finland.

The Ice Age came to an end with a phase of rapid climate change around 10,500 years ago. Scientists estimate that the average yearly temperature may have risen by as many as seven degrees within a few decades. What remained of the continental ice sheet vanished within another thousand years. During extremely cold periods between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago, the continental ice sheet halted in its retreat three times and remained stationary for centuries at a time. This led to the formation of two chains of eskers across Finland made out of gravel and sand that were transported by streams of melting ice. These two separate ridges, known as the Salpausselkä ranges, run east and west across the entire breadth of Finland. During the final stages of the Ice Age, the body of water that eventually evolved into the Baltic Sea was a lake. From this vast stretch of water, a huge labyrinthine lake slowly separated inside the rising land mass that was to become the Finnish peninsula and formed the tens of thousands of lakes of present-day Finland. However, the ground did not rise at an even rate everywhere, and, at times, the level of the sea rose, forcing rivers into new discharge channels and submerging extensive areas of land again.

Radical environmental changes followed from the warming of the climate. The Baltic shoreline moved south over millennia beginning from when the Baltic was a giant freshwater lake fed by ice-melt. Both terrestrial and aquatic game was abundant. At this time, several ringed seal subspecies became land-locked in the inland waters. The tundras that once fringed the glacier now became forest, and elk appeared in the place of the wild reindeer that formerly roamed the rim of the glacier. The transition from the Palaeolithic period (Early Stone Age) to the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age) around 10,000 years ago was a phase marked by man's endeavors to adapt to the many changes occurring in his environment. This was the period when the Uralic peoples first settled in the regions of northern Europe in which we find them today. The oldest relics ever found in southern Finland dating from around 9,200 years ago. In those ancient times, there lived on the Finnish coast people who made weapons of stone and bone, and who practiced hunting and fishing. It was also a period when people first moved northwards into Norway, from the available archeological evidence they migrated northwards along the Norwegian coast (a subject we will also return to shortly).

The Late Paleolithic Hamburg, Bromme and Ahrensburg Cultures

This takes us to what is an important transitional period - the glacial recession and the subsequent disintegration of Late Palaeolithic cultures between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. The extinction of mammoth and other megafauna provided for an incentive to exploit other forms of subsistence that included maritime resources. Northward migrations coincided with warmer eras, but much of northern Eurasia remained inhabited during the Younger Dryas. During the holocene climatic optimum, the increased biomass led to a marked intensification in foraging by all groups, the development of inter-group contacts, and ultimately, the initiation of agriculture. One of the immediate descendants of the Magdalenian Culture is the “Hamburg culture” (15,500-13,100 years ago), a Late Upper Paleolithic culture of reindeer hunters in northwestern firmly rooted in the Magdalenian Europe during the last part of the Weichsel Glaciation. Sites are found close to the ice caps of the time and the culture has been identified at many places, for example, the settlement at Meiendorf and at Ahrensburg, north of Hamburg, Germany. It is characterized by shouldered points and zinken tools, which were used as chisels when working with horns. In later periods tanged Havelte-type points appear.

The culture spread from northern France to southern Scandinavia in the north and to Poland in the east. In the early 1980s, the first find from the culture in Scandinavia was excavated at Jels in Sønderjylland. Recently, new finds have been discovered at Finja in northern Skåne. The latest findings (2005) have shown that these people traveled far north along the Norwegian coast dryshod during the summer, since the sea level was 50m lower than today (keep this in mind as well). In northern Germany, camps with layers of detritus have been found and it appears that the reindeer was an important prey. The distribution of finds in the settlements show that the settlements were small and only inhabited by small groups of people. At a few settlements, archaeologists have discovered circles of stones, interpreted as weights for a teepee covering. The distribution of the Hamburgian east of the Oder River has been confirmed and Hamburgian culture can also be distinguished in Lithuania. Finds in Jutland indicates the expansion of early Hamburgian hunters and gatherers also reached as far north as the Pomeranian ice margin.

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Reconstruction of a summer tent of reindeer hunters, Hamburg culture, Palaeolithic period, c.10000 BC, Archaeological Open-air Museum, Oerlinghausen, Germany (photo)

The Hamburg Culture was more or less succeeded in the same general area by what is known as the Bromme Culture, dating from 13,600 to 12,800 years ago. At this time, reindeer continued as the most important prey, but the Bromme people also hunted moose, wolverine and beaver. The landscape was a combination of taiga and tundra. The culture is named after a settlement at Bromme on western Zealand, and it is known from several settlements in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. In Sweden, it is known from the country's earliest known settlement at Segebro, near Malmö. It is characterized by sturdy lithic flakes that were used for all tools, primarily awls (sticklar), scrapers and skaftunge arrow heads. No stone axes have been found. The Bromme culture and the Ahrensburg culture are so similar that it has been proposed that they should be classed as one and the same, under the label Lyngby culture, with the Bromme culture being recognized as an older northern branch of the same culture as the Ahrensburg culture. Flint artefacts of Bromme tanged-point groups are considered to be a prelude to the techno-complex of the Ahrensburg culture and would point to the provenience of Ahrensburg from the Bromme culture. As such, the Grensk culture in Bromme territory at the source of the Dnieper River has been proposed as the direct originator of Ahrensburgian culture. However, the exact typological chronology of this culture is still unclear. Though associated with the Bromme complex, Grensk culture has its roots more defined in the local Mammoth Hunters' culture.

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Area of the Bromme Culture, circa 13,600 to 12,800 years ago

In this period we also see the emergence of the Ahrensburg Culture (11th to 10th millennia BCE), a late Upper Paleolithic nomadic hunter culture in north-central Europe during the Younger Dryas, the last spell of cold at the end of the Weichsel glaciation resulting in deforestation and the formation of a tundra with bushy arctic white birch and rowan. The most important prey was the wild reindeer. The earliest definite finds of arrow and bow date to this culture, though these weapons might have been invented earlier. The Ahrensburg was in turn superseded by the Mesolithic Magelmosian culture. Ahrensburg finds have been made in southern and western Scandinavia, the North German plain and western Poland. The Ahrensburgian area also included vast stretches of land now at the bottom of the North and Baltic Sea, since during the Younger Dryas the coastline took a much more northern course than today.

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Extension of the Ahrensburg culture. The earliest reliable traces of habitation in the northern territories of Norway and western Sweden date to the transition period from the Younger Dryas to the Preboreal. More favourable living conditions, and past experience gained through seasonal rounds, prompted increased maritime resource exploitation in the northern territories.

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Map of the extent of the ice during the last ice age 13000 years before the present. Note the numerous large lakes bordering the glacial ice sheet.

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Map of the extent of the ice towards the end of the last ice age 10,500 years before the present, just before the final retreat of the ice. Again, note the extensive lake areas bordering the ice sheet.

Contemparaneous with the Ahrensburg, the Swiderian culture (also published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian) is the name given to the Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas that existed over roughly the same time period. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwick. The Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers. In the early stages of the Swiderian culture, the features of the Late Bromian culture and the Ahrensburgian culture are reflected, pointing to Swiderian culture having the same origins. This is evidenced by the inventories from the Mergežeris-3 and Glūkas-10 settlements, which have a many Ahrensburgian culture features (among Swiderian points, there were several Ahrensburgian points found; a number of these points with big tangs made by steep retouching were also slightly retouched on the reverse side). Similar artefacts were found in the inventory of the Salaspils Laukskola settlement in Latvia.

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Area associated with the Swiderian Culture

Though the Ahrensburgian and Swiderian tradititions had the same roots (it is almost impossible to distinguish the earliest Swiderian and Ahrensburgian complexes as both cultural groups were characterised by the same types of artefacts), they were principally different from each other regarding the production of arrowheads. To obtain a Swiderian point the focus of attention was paid to the primary stone working - the subsequent retouching of the tool blank was only of an auxiliary nature and did not change the blank form very much. In contrast, the Ahrensburgian, Bromme and Krasnoselye retouching was deeply invasive and secondarily applied to comparably rough and imperfect flakes and blades. The preferred raw materials of the Swiderian people in Poland were large nodules of the best varieties of Jurassic and chocolate flint from the Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross) Mountains in Central Poland. Use of the chocolate flint by Swiderian groups is of particular interest: flint of this kind is found at some 300 out of 700 Swiderian sites and dominates sites up to 200 km from its source, with isolated examples found up to 750 km away.

The Swiderian culture plays a central role in the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition. It has been generally accepted that most of the Swiderian population emigrated at the very end of the Pleistocene (11,500-10,000 years ago) to the northeast, following the retreating tundra. Recent radiocarbon dates prove that some groups of the Svidero-Ahrensburgian Complex persisted into the Pre-boreal. Unlike western Europe, the Mesolithic groups now inhabiting the Polish Plain were newcomers – evidenced by the lack of good flint raw materials in the Polish early Mesolithic, pointing to the interpretation that the new arriving people were not yet acquainted with the best local sources of flint, proving their external origin. The Ukrainian archaeologist L Zalizniak (1989, p. 83-84) believes the Kunda culture of Central Russia and the Baltic zone, and other so-called post-Swiderian cultures, derive from the Swiderian culture. Sorokin (2004) rejects the "contact" hypothesis of the formation of the Kunda culture and holds it originated from the seasonal migrations of Swiderian people at the turn of Pleistocene and Holocene when human subsistence was based on hunting reindeer. Many of the earliest Mesolithic sites in Finland are post-Swiderian; these include the Ristola site in Lahti and the Saarenoja 2 site in Joutseno with lithics in imported flint, as well as the Sujala site in Utsjoki in the province of Lapland. The raw materials of the lithic assemblage at Sujala originate in the Varanger Peninsula in northern Norway.

Concerning this region, the commonly held view today is that the earliest settlement of the North Norwegian coast originated in the Fosna culture of the western and southwestern coast of Norway and ultimately in the final Palaeolithic Ahrensburg culture of northwestern Europe. The combination of a coastal raw material and a lithic technique typical to Late Palaeolithic and very early Mesolithic industries of northern Europe, originally suggested that Sujala was contemporaneous to Phase 1 of the Norwegian Finnmark Mesolithic (Komsa proper), dating to between 9 000 and 10 000 years ago. Proposed parallels with the blade technology among the earliest Mesolithic finds in southern Norway would have placed the find closer or even before 10,000 years ago. However, a preliminary connection to early North Norwegian settlements is contradicted by the shape of the tanged points and by the blade reduction technology from Sujala. The bifacially shaped tang and ventral retouch on the tip of the arrowpoints and the pressure technique used in blade manufacture are rare or absent in Ahrensburgian contexts, but very characteristic of the so-called Post-Swiderian cultures of northwestern Russia. There, counterparts of the Sujala cores can also be found. The Sujala assemblage is currently considered unquestionably post-Swiderian and is dated by radiocarbon to 9265-8930 years ago.

We’ll take a look at the Komsa and Fosna Cultures next, together with the Maglemosian, Kongemose and Ertebølle cultures and the post-Swiderian cultures of Russia and the Baltic fringe.
ex Ngāti Tumatauenga ("Tribe of the Maori War God") aka the New Zealand Army


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Juha Tompuri
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#528

Post by Juha Tompuri » 13 Mar 2013, 22:39

CanKiwi2 wrote:That said, thanks to everyone who has kept on reading over the last two and a half years (I just realised this thread has surpassed 70,000 views so I thought a word of appreciation to everyone who reads this and keeps me motivated to write was in order :D ).
Well... thank to you, and your detailed and interesting style, from which I believe others than I too, have learned a lot.

Regards, Juha

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#529

Post by Mika68* » 14 Mar 2013, 09:32

CanKiwi2 wrote: The oldest relics ever found in southern Finland dating from around 9,200 years ago.

That's not correct!

The oldest relics ever found in southern Finland dating from 120,000 years ago (Susiluola Cave in Karijoki)
Read this! http://www.sarks.fi/fa/PDF/FA24_53.pdf

It was found human being's made stones from the cave, which are from 120,000 years ago in the period of Eem-interglacial. The cave is the oldest human beings settlement in Northern Europe. It is only place on whole world where are signs of human being settlemnt before last ice period on such kind of place which was under glacial under last ice age. The human beings were surely Neandertalis people.

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CanKiwi2
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#530

Post by CanKiwi2 » 14 Mar 2013, 11:31

Mika68* wrote:
CanKiwi2 wrote: The oldest relics ever found in southern Finland dating from around 9,200 years ago.
That's not correct!

The oldest relics ever found in southern Finland dating from 120,000 years ago (Susiluola Cave in Karijoki)
Read this! http://www.sarks.fi/fa/PDF/FA24_53.pdf

It was found human being's made stones from the cave, which are from 120,000 years ago in the period of Eem-interglacial. The cave is the oldest human beings settlement in Northern Europe. It is only place on whole world where are signs of human being settlemnt before last ice period on such kind of place which was under glacial under last ice age. The human beings were surely Neandertalis people.
Fascinating. Thx for posting that Mika. I had missed that one. Fortunately for me, Neanderthals are peripheral to my writeup but that looks like an interesting site. Seems to be an ongoing debate on its provenance.

http://www.susiluola.fi/eng/wolfcave.php
ex Ngāti Tumatauenga ("Tribe of the Maori War God") aka the New Zealand Army

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#531

Post by John Hilly » 24 Mar 2013, 11:49

Found a Finnish modelling site with What If? - Entäs jos..? section with pics and short ATL scenarios.
For exemple a Finnish Spitfire and Hawker Tempest.

http://www.pienoismallit.net/galleria/malli_7517/
http://www.pienoismallit.net/galleria/malli_7629/

Maybe these could be of some use?

J-P :milwink:
"Die Blechtrommel trommelt noch!"

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#532

Post by CanKiwi2 » 26 Apr 2013, 04:46

Apologies for the long hiatus here. It ain't dead, just on hold for a few weeks. I just finished up a contract job, took a short break and now looking for the next job, doing interviews and running through some training at the same time. Service will resume shortly (probably later next week).

Cheers.................Nigel
ex Ngāti Tumatauenga ("Tribe of the Maori War God") aka the New Zealand Army

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CanKiwi2
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A Question on Naming this?

#533

Post by CanKiwi2 » 18 Jul 2013, 03:47

Been doing a bit of re-writing and trying to come up with a good title for this without being to derivative. A couple that sprang to mind were

(1) "Red Storm, White Death"

and

(2) "Until Hell Freezes Over"

(as in "If the Russians attack, sir, we'll fight them until hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will fight them on the ice." Unknown Finnish soldier to Marshal Mannerheim, October 1939) - taken from something a US soldier said in another war and time.

And how would either of them sound in Finnish? I'm wide open to suggestions here, looking for a good catchy title.
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Juha Tompuri
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#534

Post by Juha Tompuri » 18 Jul 2013, 20:35

Hi Nigel!

"Red Storm, White Death" could perhaps be "Punainen Myrsky (storm as meteorological term) , Valkoinen Kuolema"
Or Punainen Rynnäkkö... (storm as assault)


"Until Hell Freezes Over" "Vasta Kun Helvetti Jäätyy"

Both are good, but if have to be chosen, I might pick the first one.

Regards, Juha

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John Hilly
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#535

Post by John Hilly » 19 Jul 2013, 11:40

@Juha
I agree. Better to use something that haven't been used before.
"Vasta Kun Helvetti Jäätyy" sounds very good though!

@Nigel
I wouldn't use "rynnäkkö", doesn't sound right. How about "Punainen Hyöky" referring to waves Soviets used tactically?

With best,
J-P :milwink:
"Die Blechtrommel trommelt noch!"

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Hanski
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#536

Post by Hanski » 20 Jul 2013, 10:01

Objection!

For "until hell freezes over", I would prefer the expression "Kunnes helvetti jäätyy".

Lads, think about saying the whole sentence aloud in Finnish! If you say "taistelemme vasta kun helvetti jäätyy", that would actually mean "not until hell freezes... "

Unlike in English, the present-day convention in Finnish is to write the words in lowercase initials (for all except for the first word) even in titles of books, articles etc.
Last edited by Hanski on 20 Jul 2013, 10:10, edited 1 time in total.

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Panssari Salama
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#537

Post by Panssari Salama » 20 Jul 2013, 10:05

I'll give my vote to option one, Punainen myrsky, valkoinen kuolema :milsmile: Works well in its English format too.

Kunnes helvetti jäätyy is a suitable and perhaps an even catchier title as well, but the proverb was not known to Finns until the later hollywoodization of our culture? :milwink:
Panssari Salama - Paying homage to Avalon Hill PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader board games from those fab '70s.

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Juha Tompuri
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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#538

Post by Juha Tompuri » 20 Jul 2013, 21:50

Hanski wrote:For "until hell freezes over", I would prefer the expression "Kunnes helvetti jäätyy".
Yep.
That is a better translation to the whole context.
Also "Helvetin jäätymiseen asti" or "Helvetin jäätymiseen saakka" might fit and as you mentioned "saying the whole sentence aloud in Finnish!" sounds OK at least to me , but I think they are far too complicated than the one you suggested.
I was just thinking the "Until Hell Freezes Over" initial translation of me something like "lopetamme taistelemisen vasta kun helvetti jäätyy"

Regards, Juha

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#539

Post by Topspeed » 22 Jul 2013, 13:38

They just found two broken arrows at the gravings at Kierikki.

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Re: What If-Finland had been prepared for the Winter War?

#540

Post by CanKiwi2 » 22 Jul 2013, 18:36

Topspeed wrote:They just found two broken arrows at the gravings at Kierikki.
Kiitos, have to see what I can do to work Kierikki in when I pick up the paleohistorical stuff shortly.
ex Ngāti Tumatauenga ("Tribe of the Maori War God") aka the New Zealand Army

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