Archaeological Explorations of Memoryscapes: Northern Finnish Remembrances from the Twentieth Century

Abstract In this article, we use our investigations of the remnants of the past in Northern Finland associated with sites and memorials of conflict in order to highlight the ways in which layered “memoryscapes” are at the center of both individual remembrance and collective memory. Our methodology includes material culture studies and archaeological excavations, as well as interviews of people. Archaeology can be used to tie together studies of collective memory of trauma, national history, and heritage with oral histories. Contemporary archaeology also deals with remembrance and forgetting by alienating the recent past and looking at it from a distance in order to analyze aspects of culture that have been forgotten or otherwise neglected. In so doing, we scrutinize the role of materiality and material heritage in the complex process and the ethics of remembering and forgetting.