Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Rekottila
DatedEst. 2000–500 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Rekottila is a stone cairn site on a rocky hill at Kevola in Paimio, in Southwest Finland. It is a registered archaeological site in Finland, and a typological estimate dates it between 2000 BCE and 500 BCE.
The hill is known as Rekottilan linnavuori and is regarded as a possible hillfort, but the evidence for fortification is incomplete. Burial cairns stand on the summit.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Rekottila
The cliff faces east towards the fields, and the hill has steep slopes on its north-eastern and south-eastern sides, with a smaller drop to the south-west.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
The site lies on top of a steep cliff called Katinhäntä, on the western edge of Kevola. The cliff faces east towards the fields, and the hill has steep slopes on its north-eastern and south-eastern sides, with a smaller drop to the south-west.
Stone rampart structures typical of ancient hillforts have been found only along the southern edge of the summit area. The absence of other ramparts makes it somewhat problematic to identify the site as a hillfort. Burial cairns have also been built from stone on the hill.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
The site was already known in the nineteenth century. In 1885 Hjalmar Appelgren visited it to study the hill fort and at the same time dug two of the cairns, in which burnt bone was found. No other archaeological excavations have been made, though the site has been investigated superficially on several later occasions.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
The Finnish Heritage Agency has looked after the area by keeping it free of trees, so that the surroundings of the cairns are open and the cliffs stand out clearly. A path marked with the heritage symbol leads to the monuments, and the local Paimio society has set up two information boards.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
Finland's prehistoric stone monuments are cairns and boulder enclosures, built by hunter-gatherers and early farmers on ridges that once looked out over the sea. The best-preserved cairn field, Sammallahdenmäki near Rauma, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, and its cairns date from about 1500 to 500 BCE. Many cairns in Finland have not been dug, and dating then relies on their shape and on excavated neighbours.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Finnish Bronze Age cairns and giant's churches
Finland's prehistoric stone monuments are cairns and boulder enclosures, built by hunter-gatherers and early farmers on ridges that once looked out over the sea. The best-preserved cairn field is Sammallahdenmäki, near Rauma, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. Thirty-three granite cairns lie in clusters along a long ridge, built from boulders quarried from the cliff below or gathered on the spot. They date from about 1500 to 500 BCE; twenty-eight are early Bronze Age and the rest early Iron Age. Two are unusual: the Huilun pitkä raunio, the "long ruin of Huilu", is ringed by an ancient stone wall, and Kirkonlaattia, "Church Floor", is a rectangular cairn. Many cairns have not been dug, and dating then relies on their shape and on excavated neighbours.
An older and different tradition is the "Giant's Churches" (Jätinkirkko) of the Ostrobothnia coast. These are rectangular or oval embankments of boulders, about forty known, spread along a 400-kilometre strip of coast from Kokkola to Kemi. They are dated to the Subneolithic, roughly 3500 to 2000 BCE, and were built by hunter-gatherers; the largest known, Kastelli, encloses an area of 60 by 35 metres. Although they stand inland today, they were probably built on the shore. There is no firm evidence of their purpose; one suggestion is that seal hunters used them on the spring ice.
The name is itself folk tradition: jätinkirkko, "giant's church", is a popular label that says nothing about what the enclosures were really for.
When visiting, walk a cairn field along the ridge and notice how each cairn sits slightly apart, often on the highest ground, and look for the straight sides and rounded corners of a giant's church in the forest.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Sammallahdenmäki, Wikipedia: Giant's Churches, Wikipedia: Cairn, Wikipedia: Burial mound · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1800
Kohde oli tunnettu jo 1800-luvulla, ja vuonna 1885 Hjalmar Appelgren kävi paikalla tutkimassa vuorilinnaa ja kaivoi samalla kertaa kaksi hautaröykkiötä.
Source - 1885
Kivistä on myös rakennettu hautaröykkiötä, joista kahta on kaitettu vuonna 1885. Niistä löytyi palanutta luuta.
Source - 1927
Kohde on tutkittu pintapuolisesti vuosina 1927 (Allan Lindroos), 1996 (Marianne Schauman-Lönnqvist), 2005 (Eeva Raike) ja 2014 (Kaisa Lehtonen & Satu Mikkonen-Hirvonen).
Source - 1990
Alueen hoidosta ovat vastanneet Teija Tiitinen ja Henrik Asplund (1990–1995) sekä Satu Mikkonen-Hirvonen (1998) ja Marja Sipilä (1999).
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2000–500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Finland; this site has not been dated itself. Finnish burial mounds belong to the Bronze Age of the Nordic sphere (c. 2000-500 BC); the Battle Axe culture flourished in south-west Finland c. 2800-2300 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Finland
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 60°25′40″ N, 22°44′46″ EFor a GPS or map app: 60.42774, 22.74605
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Alitalo2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Varemäki2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Litto2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Leikola2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kirkkoniitunmäki2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Rahkio2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Luuspää2000–500 BCE
Varasvuori2000–500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q25453194wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rekottilan linnavuori" (Finnish), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Finnish): Rekottilan linnavuoriCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q25453194CC0