‘I have better stuff at home’: treasure hunting and private collecting of World War II artefacts in Finnish Lapland

ABSTRACT

Almost all archaeologists encounter collectors of different kinds of artefacts at some point in their career, whether it is the private collectors of financially valuable antiquities or ‘amateur archaeologists’ who have amassed personal collections of local finds. In our research into the material legacy of the German presence in northern Finland during World War II, we have encountered both artefact hunters (primarily but not exclusively metal detecting enthusiasts) and artefact collectors (sometimes the same people) with a specific interest in military remains from this location and period. In this article, we explore these alternative perspectives on collecting, and frame them within the context of treasure hunters, militaria collectors and other history hobbyists, and their relationship to the ‘official’ heritage managers and curators.

KEYWORDS:

• Collectors
• alternative archaeology
• artefact hunters
• Finnish Lapland
• metal detecting
• World War II

Acknowledgements

This article is part of the research project ‘Lapland’s Dark Heritage: Understanding the Cultural Legacy of Northern Finland’s WWII German Materialities within Interdisciplinary Perspectives’, based at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and funded by the Academy of Finland (Decision no. 275497). We thank the interviewees for kindly cooperating with our research, and thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their feedback on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (Research Council for Culture and Society, decision no. 275497).

Notes on contributors

Vesa-Pekka Herva

Vesa-Pekka Herva, PhD (2004, University of Oulu), is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Oulu, Finland. He has studied various aspects of material culture, human–environment relations, cosmology and heritage in north-eastern Europe from the Neolithic to the modern times.

Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto

Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, PhD (2013, University of Jyväskylä), is a researcher in the project ‘Lapland’s Dark Heritage’ at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is an ethnologist/folklorist by training and is interested in the everyday life experiences of ordinary people in the post-war period, material culture, intergenerational exchange and narrative traditions.

Oula Seitsonen

Oula Seitsonen (MA, 2004, MSc, 2014, University of Helsinki) is a researcher in the project

‘Lapland’s Dark Heritage’ at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests cover a wide variety of subjects, ranging from prehistoric palaeoenvironmental studies to contemporary archaeology and digital humanities.

Suzie Thomas

Suzie Thomas, PhD (2009, Newcastle University), is University Lecturer in Museology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests include community archaeology, archaeology and amateur metal detecting, and alternative perspectives on cultural heritage.