There is an east-west division in Europe, separating the Atlantic West and the Eurasian East, which is strongly reflected also in (pre)historic and modern Finland. The Finnish east-west division is reflected not only in archaeological and cultural data over time, but also in linguistic and genetic data, as well as in economy, health and well-being today – well documented in datasets analyzed by FinCult. Using the Finnish east-west division as a case study FinCult strives to resolve the roots and drivers of spatial variation in human immaterial and material culture. FinCult builds testable hypotheses on how east-west division developed through a complex network of ecological environment, administrative history, travel routes, landscape affordances and agriculture, land ownership and religion. These analyses present innovative statistical approaches including causal modelling with Bayesian statistics. All this enables an understanding of the present duality of Finland.

2026

2030