The North has traditionally been viewed as a marginal zone whose hunting and gathering populations are often portrayed as the passive recipients of technological developments dispersing from the South via local adoption and/or population migrations.
More recently, many northern regions have been drawn into modern political states, with the result that scholarly debate has tended to reflect national research traditions, which focus on the emergence of ethnic groups and identities. As a result, the present day cultural diversity of the North is understood from a categorical perspective. Together, the shared emphasis on northern marginality and crisp group-based identities has increasingly come to obscure our understanding of the active roles played by northern communities in long-term historical transformations.

The main emphasis has been on the northern Fennoscandia and the period from 6000 BC to 1600 AD, covering the initial contact between distinct regional groups up to the transition to reindeer herding. Some more recent linguistic data has also been employed in order to shed light on the development of linguistic diversification. Thus, the focus is on the northern hunter-gatherer-fisher societies, their interaction with each other and later with neighbouring agricultural groups, which gradually developed into state societies. The main point of interest is the investigation of the dynamics of the resident groups and of the constituting processes and consequences of their active and strategic involvement in regional and interregional networks.

While more traditional studies have focused on cultural and linguistic entities, our starting point is the material and linguistic variability on different scales. By breaking down supposed entities into any number of separate connections documented in available data, we seek more detailed and nuanced insight into the substances of regional and interregional networks in order to be able to explore the motivation, processes and socio-cultural consequences of these contacts. The trajectory investigated in the project provides the background for an understanding of the modern ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in northern Fennoscandia.

The project has attempted to incorporate as many aspects of human societies as possible, rather than focus on a few selected aspects. Similarly, we wanted to move beyond national boundaries and research traditions. It has therefore been necessary to gather, coordinate and analyze archaeological, historical, anthropological and linguistic data from across northern Fennoscandia, as well as comparative ethnoarchaeological and ethnohistorical data in order to implement a more truly interdisciplinary and international approach.

This interdisciplinary approach has been very successful. Several chapters in the resulting volumes will be co-authored, presenting interdisciplinary interpretations. Even more important, however, is the increased understanding of data, methods and theories in neighboring disciplines that has developed through the year. This way the project has initiated innovative research that we believe will develop in the future. As such, the project has created a promising academic network, which will reach beyond the group participants.

One outcome of the project is the initiative to launch a book series, ‘Archaeology of the North’. Negotiations and peer-reviewing with Cambridge University Press is underway. This series will extend the intellectual legacy of the CAS project and its focus on northern societies. Hopefully, it will serve to develop and maintain links between the many institutions working in the circumpolar north as well.

The academic results of the project will be published in two collective volumes. The first will focus on the theoretical and methodological perspectives of the project and will direct itself towards a wider academic audience. Although examples will be derived from Northern Fennoscandia this volume is not predominantly meant to present the Fennoscandian material and (pre-)history.

The second volume will be in-depth presentations of the individual case studies, thus providing a trajectory of the development in networking and interaction in Fennoscandia. This volume is directed towards academics with a particular interest in the region