Ari Pekka Siiriäinen (16 November 1939 – 9 December 2004) was a Finnish archaeologist. He worked as the Professor of Archaeology in

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

from 1983 to 2004.

Early life

Siiriäinen was born on 16th of November 1939 in Viipuri, Finland but was evacuated in a splint basket to

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

when he was just few weeks old, after

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

had started. He grew up in Helsinki and graduated from Normal Lyceum of Helsinki in 1958. After serving in the army as a conscript, he started studying

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

in the University of Helsinki, but soon changed his major to

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

Career

Shortly after becoming a student of archaeology, Siiriäinen was hired for a summer job to excavate in Lapland in 1960. He was selected as the professor of archaeology in the

in 1983, after his predecessor Carl Fredrik Meinander had retired. Siiriäinen worked as a visiting researcher in

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1978-1979 and as a visiting professor in

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

in 1994. Siiriäinen was a founding member of

The Archaeological Society of Finland ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The' ...

and acted as its chairman in 2002.

Illness and death

Shortly after retiring, Siiriäinen was diagnosed with cancer and heart disease in 2003, after returning from his last expedition to South America. Siiriäinen died to cancer on 9th of December 2004. Before his passing, he stated that "I'll die as a happy man".

Award and honours

A peer-reviewed

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

, published by the Finnish Antiquarian Society, was dedicated to Siiriäinen in 1999.

Publications

Books

* ''Lohjalaisten historia'' (with Heikki Ylikangas) (1973) * ''Suur-Tuusulan historia: Tuusula - Kerava - Järvenpää. 1. Esihistoriallisesta ajasta seurakunnan perustamiseen 1643'' (with Jaakko Sarkamo and Åke Winqvist) (1983) * ''Mankkaan seudun historiikki'' (1993) * ''Afrikan kulttuurien juuret'' (with Arvi Hurskainen) (1995)

Selected academic works

* ''The Wadi Halfa region (Northern Sudan) in the Stone Age, based on the researches of the Scandinavian joint expedition to Nubia 1962-1963'' (1966) * ''Studies Relating to Shore Displacements and Stone Age Chronology in Finland'' (1974) * ''Iron Age Cultivation in SW Finland'' (with Kimmo Tolonen and Anna-Liisa Hirviluoto) (1976) * ''Excavations in Laikipia: An Archeological Study of the Recent Prehistory in the Eastern Highlands of Kenya'' (1984) * ''Archaeological evidence for dating the sediments in a playa in Farafra, Western Desert of Egypt'' (1999) * ''Reports of the Finnish-Bolivian Archaeological Project in the Bolivian Amazon II - Noticias del proyecto arqueológico finlandés-boliviano en la Amazonia boliviana II'' (as editor) (2002)

References

{{reflist

External links

WorldCat

Siiriäinen's Obituary in Suomen Museo/Finskt Museum

The living legacy of Ari Siiriäinen: Six decades of Finnish archaeological research on the African continent (by Oula Seitsonen)

Finnish archaeologists 21st-century archaeologists 20th-century archaeologists 1939 births 2004 deaths Academic staff of the University of Helsinki People from Vyborg People from Karelia