ABSTRACT

Dwellings comprise a focal point of human life and the scene of everyday social interaction, but they also form a ‘bridge’ between human beings and the cosmos at large. Dwellings are bodily cognitive extensions of people, on the one hand, and model cosmological concepts on the other. Thus, for instance, the cosmos of traditional northern forager societies has been conceived as a vast tepee-like space, with a world-pillar in the centre supporting the great cosmic canvas that is the sky. But although lightweight, mobile dwellings have been considered typical to northern cultures, more substantial, rectangular semi-subterranean houses were introduced in the circumpolar North already in the Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic transition. This change in the mode of dwelling not only reflects a more sedentary lifestyle but also a very different view of the cosmos and perceiving the world and was associated with the more fundamental cultural transformation associated with Neolithization in northern Eurasia. With this development, lands and soils came to take up new meanings in the fourth and third millennium bc. The introduction of pottery and clay work in general are a concrete example of a new sensitiveness to soils, while houses partially dug under the earth’s surface indicate a changing relationship with the underworld.

This chapter focuses on changing modes of inhabiting the world and how dwellings have mediated people’s understanding and perception of the world – and how, at the same time, a degree of a deep-level cultural and cosmological continuity can be seen to characterize northern cultures from the Neolithic to the recent past. A particular emphasis is put on people’s changing relationship with land and soils and characterizing the relationship between people and their dwellings in the prehistoric as well as historical-period northern contexts. In the relational understanding of the world, houses emerge as animate beings. This also involves a discussion on the household spirit and ghost traditions of the historical period, and what they reveal – viewed together with such archaeological features as objects hidden in the structure of houses – about human relationship with dwellings.