page_title: Slash-and-burn
section_title: Forest Finns
hierarchical_section_title: Slash-and-burn / Historical references / Forest Finns
caption_attribution_description: Norsk bokmål: Huuhtasvedjebrukets utbredelse; innenfor sirkelen 1500 e.Kr.. hel linje 1600 e.Kr.. stiplet linje 1700 e.Kr. Det ser ut til at huuhta oppsto i skogene nordøst for Viborg engang på 1300-tallet, men utbredelsen skjøt fart først senere. Ekspansjonen fortsatte på 1800-tallet samt til Twer i Russland, Delaware i Nordamerika og flere områder i Sibir.English: Huuhta cultivation spread, within the circle in 1500 AD entire line in 1600 AD dashed in 1700 AD It appears that huuhta originated in the forests northeast of Viborg even the 1300's, but the prevalence accelerated only later. The expansion continued in the 1800s and to Twer in Russia, Delaware in North America and several areas in Siberia.
context_page_description: Slash-and-burn agriculture, also called fire-fallow cultivation, is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile, as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move over to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle. In India, the practice is known as jhum or jhoom.
  Slash-and-burn can be part of shifting cultivation, an agricultural system in which farmers routinely move from one cultivable area to another.
context_section_description: One culture which flourished in pre-agricultural Europe survives: the Forest Finns in Scandinavia. Martin Tvengsberg, a descendant of the Forest Finns, studied them in his capacity as curator of the Hedmark Museum in Norway.
  The Savo-Karelians had a sophisticated system for cultivating spruce forests. A runic poem about Finland's spruce forests reads, "Gåivu on mehdien valgoinen valhe" ("The birch is the forest’s white lie"). The best spruce forests reportedly contain birch trees, which grow only after a forest has burned once or twice.
caption: Huuhta cultivation spread: within the circle in 1500 CE, within the line in 1600, and to the dashed line in 1700.
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