Archaeologia Baltica

This paper deals with the function of rectangular bladelets produced in experimental studies. The function of the bladelets produced experimentally was compared with that of a similar flint inventory discovered at the Katra I settlement. The experimental studies were carried out in the traceological laboratory at Klaipėda University. The functional dependence of the laboratory-produced flint blades and artefacts found at the Katra I settlement (in the Varėna district) were established with an Olympus SZX16 microscope. The experimental items were used in contact with dry reeds (Phragmites). It was established that the functions of the laboratory-produced blades and the ones discovered at the Katra I settlement coincided: most of the artefacts from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods from the Katra I settlement were used for reed cutting.

In 2004, an archaeological survey was carried out in Aukštumala upland bog (in the Šilutė district in western Lithuania), during which the remains of settlements from the Late Palaeolithic and Middle Mesolithic periods were discovered. These were the first sites from the Late Glacial and Early Holocene periods to be found in the lower reaches of the River Nemunas. The chronology and topography of the sites helped to identify the chronology of the area’s population, and to localise the natural environment in which the people of these periods lived. Based on the typology of the discovered artefacts, manufactured flint items in the Palaeolithic settlement were identified as being close to Late Arensburgian culture, and those of the Middle Mesolithic to Maglemosian or Early Nemunas culture.

The set of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic artefacts from Aukštumala consists exclusively of flint manufactured items. This paper presents exhaustive data on studies of the flint artefacts, and on the reconstruction of their manufacture technique, based on observable characteristics of their manufacture. The functions of the artefacts found in the settlements were established at the Archaeological Material Research Laboratory at Klaipėda University, by means of an Olympus SZX16 microscope, and simultaneously their typology and the chronology of individual items were revised.