Dr Oula Seitsonen
Oula Seitsonen (associate professor, title of docent) is an archaeologist and geographer based at the University of Oulu.
Through the years he has worked with, for instance, the archaeology of pastoralist societies in Mongolia, East Africa and Fennoscandia, GIS applications in archaeology, past of Lapland’s wilderness areas, and contemporary and conflict archaeologies. Currently he directs the University of Oulu projects “An archaeological perspective on inequality in welfare society” (funded by the Kone Foundation, 2022-2027), and “Eerie Arctic Aviation: Impacts and Cultural Legacies of 20th Century Military Aviation in the Circumpolar Zone” (funded by the Finnish Research Council, 2024-2028). Seitsonen is the author of the first monograph approaching the Finnish conflict materialities from a theoretically-informed perspective “Archaeologies of Hitler’s Arctic War” (Routledge, 2021).
Select publications
- Stephens, L. et al. 2019. Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use. Science 365(6456): 897–902.
- Seitsonen O. 2021. Archaeologies of Hitler’s Arctic War. Heritage of the Second World War German Military Presence in Finnish Lapland. (310 pp.). Routledge: Abingdon. ISBN: 9780367138202 (hbk), ISBN: 9780367138219 (ebk).
- Seitsonen, O., Matila, T., Hyttinen, M. & Kelloniemi, A. 2024. Contemporary Archaeological Perspectives on Intersectional Inequality in a Welfare Society. Antiquity 98(398).
- Seitsonen, O., Broderick, L.G., Banks, I., Olafson Lundemo, M., Seitsonen, S. & Herva, V.-P. 2021. Military supply, everyday demand, and reindeer: Zooarchaeology of Nazi German Second World War military presence in Finnish Lapland, Northernmost Europe. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 32(3).
- Seitsonen, O. & Olafson Lundemo, M. 2021. “Railroad of Death”: History and Archaeology of the German-built Second World War Hyrynsalmi–Kuusamo Railway 1942–1944. Tekniikan Waiheita 39(3).
- Seitsonen, O., Ylimaunu, T. & Mullins, P. 2020. Public Memory, National Heritage, and Memorialization of the 1918 Finnish Civil War. World Archaeology 51(5).
- Koskinen-Koivisto, E. & Seitsonen, O. 2019. Landscapes of loss and destruction: Sámi Elders’ Childhood Memories of the Second World War. Ethnologia Europaea 49(1).
- Seitsonen, O. & Koskinen-Koivisto, E. 2018. “Where the F… is Vuotso”: Heritage of Second World War forced movement and destruction in a Sámi reindeer herding community in Finnish Lapland. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(4).
Select awards
- Invited life member, Ordo Arietis Wiburgensis, Constitutus 1495, October 16, 2023
- Award winner, Tiederunoja science poem competition, November 21, 2023
- Professor Pentti Kaitera Fund award for distinguished scientific work, Domestication in Action research team (team member), 20 000 €, 2021