Milton Nunez

University of Oulu · Department of Archaeology

In mid‐18th‐century Sweden, the newly enhanced census records revealed higher‐than‐expected infant mortality rates in certain regions of the kingdom. This convinced contemporary elite men of common women deliberately refusing to breastfeed out of vanity and lack of care. One of the worst regions in terms of infant mortality was the province of Ostr...

Reindeer herding emerged among the indigenous Sámi of Northern Fennoscandia between ca. 800 and 1500 CE. While the details of the reindeer domestication process are still actively debated, it has been hypothesized that the transition to reindeer herding affected Sámi ritual practice, especially animal offerings given at various sacred sites. To exp...

This paper presents new osteometric and stable isotope evidence of Sámi reindeer offerings. Previous archaeological studies have shown that reindeer domestication and intensification of reindeer herding transformed Sámi indigenous religion. However, because of the methodological challenges in the identification of wild and domesticated reindeer in...

The Euphrates and the Tigris valleys in greater Mesopotamia provide a treasure trove for archaeologists studying the Roman and Byzantine eras. There existed some parts of the eastern frontier zone of the Roman and Byzantine empires, remains of which are in modern Syria and Turkey. This was also the stage where some of the first steps in archaeologi...

Remote sensing has provided a modern wider perspective to approach the earth with its various environments and impact of humans by prospecting previously unknown frontiers of human life. The traces of mobile groups are archaeologically often more difficult to detect than those of the sedentary ones, but new approaches and methods have changed and e...

Mummified human remains have been preserved in the cool, well-ventilated crypts of old Finnish churches, which were popular burial sites among the elite of the early modern period. Here, the authors present the results of a computed tomography study of the remains of an early 17th-century vicar of Keminmaa. They examined the preservation of his rem...

Abstract The custom of burying deceased members of the elite beneath church floors was common in 17th–18th-century Finland. This practice is responsible for the mummification of the remains of an early 17th-century vicar of Kemi parish, Nikolaus Rungius. Computed tomography performed on his remains revealed a possible tuberculous infection in his s...

Traditionally polygonal tower tombs dating from the Greco-Roman era, especially found in the area of Syro-Mesopotamia, have only been treated as funerary structures without discussion of their other possible purposes. In this paper we wish to inquire whether they had other functions as well. The most famous examples of these types of tombs are situ...

The present paper concentrates on the use of remote sensing by satellite imagery for detecting ancient tracks and roads in the area between Palmyra and the Euphrates in Syria. The Syrian desert was traversed by caravans already in the Bronze Age, and during the Greco-Roman period the traffic increased with the Silk Road and trade as well as with mi...

Nowadays we can travel by GoogleEarth 3D to Syria (http://www.worldcountries.info/GoogleEarth/GoogleEarth-Syria.php) and zoom in on the desert landscape of the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri between the Euphrates river and the Syrian Desert. This is the area, where the Finnish archaeological survey and mapping project SYGIS worked in 2000-2010...

Nowadays we can travel by GoogleEarth 3D to Syria (http://www.worldcountries.info/GoogleEarth/GoogleEarth-Syria.php) and zoom in on the desert landscape of the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri between the Euphrates river and the Syrian Desert. This is the area, where the Finnish archaeological survey and mapping project SYGIS worked in 2000-2010...

Remote-sensing, archaeological field survey and GIS are combined by the Finnish Project SYGIS in the studies of the Euphrates valley confined by the mountain of Jebel Bishri in Central Syria. Changes in the course of the river channel have caused transformations in the occupational past and landscape. The alluvial terraces offer evidence of the ear...

Body mass reconstruction from postcranial skeletal elements is a common method in Osteology and various fields of Anthropology. As a weight-bearing element, the femoral head is often considered as a relatively straightforward tool for body mass analyses. Mechanical methods explore the relationship between skeletal elements and weight as a stable tr...

This study examines the cross sectional shape and biomechanical properties of the radial bone shaft at mid-radial tuberosity (RT) musculoskeletal marker (MSM). This information will provide insight into factors affecting bone modelling at muscle insertions. Radial shaft cross-sectional properties at radial tuberosity area (RTA) have not been previo...

Some time during the late 5th millennium cal BC (cal), East Baltic amber imports began to reach Finland, where it occurred associated with the so-called Typical Comb ware (TCW, c. 4100–3500 cal BC). Imports of this rare fossil resin continue through the remaining of the Finnish Middle Neolithic, but seem to dwindle by the end of the 3rd millennium...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a new malaria protocol introduced in 2007 at Nyarugusu Refugee Camp. In accordance with this protocol, the delivery of a diagnostic test (rapid diagnostic test or microscopy) was made compulsory prior to the administration of antimalarial drugs (ACTs: artemisinin-based combination therapies)...

Objective To present a probable case of beta-thalassemia found in the skull of an Egyptian child of about 3000 years of antiquity.

In this paper, animal offerings at Sámi sacrificial sites, sieidi (SaaN), will be discussed from an archaeological and a zooarchaeological point of view. Offerings are seen as a part of daily subsistence activities where the border between sacred and profane was fuzzy and transient. We take the position that animal offerings cannot be interpreted a...

Site catchment analysis has usually been executed in archaeological studies pertaining to hunter-gatherer economies and site resource basis within a certain radius of a distance. It was initially introduced to archaeology by C. Vita-Finzi and E. Higgs. The Finnish project SYGIS carrying out archaeological prospecting, surveying and mapping on the m...

Stable isotope analysis of carbon (13C/12C) and nitrogen (15N/14N) was performed on collagen extracted from three human and five herbivore bone and tooth samples from the Late Upper Palaeolithic site of Balma Guilanyà (Catalonian Pre-Pyrenees, Spain). Contextual and palaeoecological data as well as radiocarbon dates indicate that the studied occupa...

During the fourth millennium B.C. the northern coast on the Finnish side of the Botnian Bay seems to have experienced major social and economic developments that continued to flourish throughout the third millennium. These are manifested in the form of new asbestostempered wares, an abundance of exotic goods, clusters of semi-subterranean houses in...

A ruined fort rises at Tabus on the northeastern edge of Jebel Bishri in Central Syria. The fort which is situated c. 25 km northwest of the city of Deir ez-Zor along the road to Aleppo overlooks the Valley of the Euphrates. The fort is roughly triangular in layout covering c. 300 m x 80 m x 100 m. It is connected with a graveyard and two separate...

SYGIS – the Finnish archaeological survey and mapping project of Jebel Bishri-is tracing new dimensions for the Roman eastern frontier or the so-called eastern limes in Syria. It has been noted in several Roman frontier studies that the Euphrates region is insufficiently studied to clearly define the development of Roman policy and the extent of th...

The author examines the competing hypotheses that have been advanced to explain the origin and migration routes of the Finns, including the suggestion that they formerly inhabited parts of the North European plain immediately to the south of Scandinavia during the latter part of the Würm glaciation. As the ice retreated northwards at the end of the...

Results of a somewhat preliminary bioanthropological study on the skeletal material from the Pitted ware site of jettböle, excavated in the parish of jomala, Aland (Ahvenanmaa) Islands, some 85-90 years ago are presented, and the causes for the disorderly distribution, including the possibility of cannibalism, are discussed.