Johan Reinhold Aspelin enrolled at the Imperial Alexander University in 1862. Gabriel Rein, the recently retired professor of history, had fostered a Fennoman spirit of national romanticism, and in this atmosphere Aspelin dedicated himself to his historical studies. Rein had encouraged his students to study Finland’s early civilisation and prehistory, something that also stirred the imagination of young Aspelin.

Aspelin graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1866. He continued his studies first in Sweden, focusing on ancient Scandinavian history. Then, becoming convinced that his mission was to study the ancient history of Finland, he further studied at the University of Moscow, and he undertook an excursion through the Nordic countries into Germany, France, Poland and the Baltic countries; in addition, he participated in archaeological digs in Russia in regions populated by Finno-Ugric peoples.

He completed his doctoral dissertation, Suomalais-ugrilaisen muinaistutkinnon alkeita (‘The basics of studying ancient Finno-Ugric peoples’), in 1875. In his dissertation, Aspelin echoed Matthias Castrén’s contention that the Finno-Ugric peoples originated around the Altai Mountains and the steppe near the Yenisei river, roaming west to the Urals during the Bronze Age, with the Finns continuing their journey all the way to Finland.

Aspelin returned to his theory on the origin of the Finno-Ugric peoples over a decade later. Between 1887 and 1889, he led three Finnish Antiquarian Society research expeditions to the upper reaches of the Yenisei river. There the expedition gathered and documented stone engravings, which Aspelin considered to have been made by Finno-Ugric peoples during the Bronze Age. These engravings were later shown to have been made by the Turks during the Iron Age, and the theory promoted by Castrén and Aspelin began to unravel.

After completing his dissertation, Aspelin edited a work intended for a general international readership, a five-part illustrated atlas, published between 1877 and 1884, entitled Muinaisjäännöksiä Suomen suvun asumus-aloilta. Antiquités du nord finno-ougrien (‘Northern Finno-Ugric Antiquities’). The merits of the work were such that Aspelin was appointed professor extraordinary of Nordic archaeology in 1878, thus becoming the first professor of archaeology in Finland.

Sources:

• Timo Salminen, Aspelin, Johan Reinhold, the National Biography of Finland, Online Publication. Available for free on the Nelli Portal. Accessed November 23, 2015.
• J. R. Aspelin, Finnish Wikipedia article. Accessed November 23, 2015.
• Johan Reinhold Aspelin, Swedish Wikipedia article. Accessed November 23, 2015.