Century later, Finnish skulls return home after “racial studies” in Sweden

Dozens of skulls unburied from Finnish soil returned home on Sunday, September 8 after a century of “racial studies” in Sweden. 

How Finnish skulls were taken to Sweden for research

In the summer of 1873, three Swedish researchers from the Karolinska Institute dug up graves in four Finnish communities to take dozens of human skulls and remains for examination in Sweden. In an effort to learn about the origins of the Nordic region, the researchers set on a centuries-long study of the racial characteristics of the Finnish skulls, housed across Swedish institutions before being returned to Karolinska in 2015.

An archaeologist at the University of Turku in Finland, Ulla Moilanen said that most of the skulls are believed to have been buried between the 1500s and the 1800s, and although their identities remain unknown, Finnish researchers on their side, hope to examine DNA samples and find out more about the past generations. “When we find out more about these people, their lives, they really become part of history, not just as skulls, but as human beings.”  

Swedish researchers, however, had different motivations behind the studies, aiming to discover whether Finns were a different race from Swedes, under the notion that the Finnish language is closer to Estonian and Hungarian than Swedish. For many Finns, these questions seemed too much like an effort to make the Finnish race inferior.

“They kind of wanted to put us down and thought maybe that they could do whatever they like with our skulls and remains…That those people weren´t important,” shared Pauliina Pikka, an official from Palkane, a small Finnish community from which the skulls were taken. 

Sweden brings Finnish skulls back home

About 80 miles northwest of the Finnish capital, Palkane residents united on Sunday, September 8 to mark the homecoming of the ancient skulls which had finally been returned home. Neighbours gathered to watch the return of the remains to the church from which they had been taken in 1873.

“People are pleased to see their bodies made whole again in their home soil and in their home cemetery,” said the local vicar Jari Kemppainen. To the sound of the military band, skulls arrived in a horse-drawn carriage, driven by people in old-fashioned Finnish clothing. As the four men carrying each coffin, lowered them into a grave, community members cast dirt and sand over the remains, in memory of the past population.

“They are our own people, even if they lived hundreds of years ago,” said Pauliina Pikka. “They deserve, now, to come back here. They deserve to get rest.” One of the community members, the 90-year-old Hanna-Liisa Anttila came to the ceremony wearing a national costume to pay respects to the ancestors who she said may have been the family of her husband. She referred to Sweden´s removal of the remains as a “desecration.”

“People feel that they are participating in something meaningful,” said the cultural coordinator for Palkane, Marketta Pyysalo, marking the significance of the ceremony. “This is a handshake with the past.”  

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