The creation of the Vuoksi River preceded a significant cultural shift

After the end of the last ice age, post-glacial rebound caused the Earth’s crust in eastern Fenno-Scandinavia to tilt, increasing the amount of water and size of the body of water that would later become Lake Saimaa. Approximately 6,000 years ago, the Salpausselkä ridge could no longer hold back the waters, which burst through and penetrated the glacial till and bedrock with incredible force. This created the Vuoksi River, and resulted in an approximately four-metre decrease in the water level of Lake Saimaa, revealing thousands of square kilometres of new land in Eastern Finland.

Run by University of Helsinki biologists, scientists and archaeologists together with the National Board of Antiquities, the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute and the University of Bristol, the multidisciplinary research project has studied the role which the creation of the Vuoksi River played in the simultaneous spread of the most significant culture in our prehistory.

“One of the basic principles of science is that the cause must come before the effect,” emphasises Docent Markku Oinonen, who is the director of the Natural Sciences Unit of the Finnish Museum of Natural History, a University of Helsinki independent institute. [...] luomus.fi/ via EurekAlert! (B&W3)

Journal Reference:
M. Oinonen, P. Pesonen, T. Alenius, V. Heyd, E. Holmqvist-Saukkonen, S. Kivimaki, T. Nygren, T. Sundell, P. Onkamo. Event reconstruction through Bayesian chronology: Massive mid-Holocene lake-burst triggered large-scale ecological and cultural change. The Holocene, 2014; DOI: 10.1177/0959683614544049