The Slettnes type. Proto-Sámi dwellings in Northern Norway 0-1050 AD

Abstract

This thesis centers around the so-called Slettnes type houses appearing around 0 AD in coastal areas of Troms and Finnmark. These dwellings usually feature stone rows leading from the hearth, resembling Sámi practices of floor partitioning known from extant historal sources. Similar features are known from the Paleo-Eskimo cultures of Greenland and North-Eastern canada. The paper loosely employs theorical perspectives of the 'new materialist' school to better understand this cross-cultural phenomenon. In the initial literature following the excavations at Slettnes in the early 1990s, the inconspicuous remains of the small, circular turf houses or tent ring from the first millennium ADs were championed as a 'type'. On an aggregate level, the paper aims to elucidate the foundations of this definition. Survey data has also been compiled and presented. A discussion on problems relating to relative dating of these remains is also included