Archaeologia Baltica

This article surveys tendencies in Bronze Age social research in the Baltic countries. It marks a new departure in archaeological

Lithuanian boat and ship archaeology is a field of studies that is still in its very early stages. This paper is presented as a case study of a solitary watercraft found during underwater prospecting. The subtitle ‘From log-boat to boat’ is intended not only to stress technical innovations and transitions in boat-building techniques, but also to open a new chapter in Lithuanian inland underwater archaeology, with an emphasis on boat and ship archaeology. Some technical features of this boat, such as the bottom made from a single piece of pine, links it to more archaic log-boats. In eastern Lithuanian woodlands, archaic watercraft remained relatively unchanged up to modern times. From appearances, the Rašia boat can be taken as originating during the change from log-boat to boat, reflecting some features that can be retrospective in time to earlier periods of history.

Research into individual archaeological shoe finds allows us to make assumptions concerning the differentiation of shoes according to social strata during the Renaissance period. A more complex and higher-quality shoe construction is a characteristic feature of shoes worn by people of a higher social standing.

Dogs are the earliest domesticated animals, which followed man for thousands of years. Their historical diversity and interaction with men is no less interesting than the problem of their origin. The present report covers the subject of canine diversity and interaction with men in Medieval Novgorod the Great (the tenth to the 14th centuries), one of the oldest and most important trading cities in Russia.

This article presents an analysis of the spatial structure and the chronological development of Opstainis, Vilkyškiai Iron-Age hill-fort settlement, on the basis of archaeological and geomagnetic survey data. It has been ascertained that the hill-fort and the settlement were inhabited throughout the first millennium AD. The currently available scientific research data from Opstainis, Vilkyškiai Iron-Age hill-fort and settlement (half-sunken building or pit houses, oval-shaped and pear-shaped flatbottom household pits, and shards of handmade pottery decorated with cross-shaped imprint ornaments) serve as indications of contacts between the inhabitants of the lower reaches of the River Nemunas and the southwest Baltic Sea region in the second half of the first millennium AD.

Hill-forts are visually distinct archaeological monuments of the Lithuanian landscape; despite excavations that have recently become more intensive, more often than not we still make judgments of hill-forts on the basis of their surviving image, which is assumed to reflect the final stage of their existence. Usually our knowledge about the size of the settlement at its foot, its planigraphy, and of course chronology, is too slender to make any conclusions. By employing complex non-destructive research methods (palynological, geochemical, lithological and geomagnetic analysis, as well as 14C and thermoluminescence dating), the article discusses the time of the rise and the abandonment of Skomantai hill-fort and settlements, the hierarchical relations with the hill-fort as an object forming the settlement structure of the neighbouring area, both settlements at the foot of the hill, and the surrounding burial grounds and monuments, all of which make up a micro-region. As the economic model of the community and the social structure of society changed, the relations between the hill-fort and the settlements changed, as did the purpose of the hill-fort.

The article gives a brief overview of recent achievements in the study of Djakovo-type sites located in the Moskva river basin. The chronological time frames are from the eighth to seventh centuries BC to the sixth to seventh centuries AD. The most important inferences are based on the results of the excavations of the Djakovo hill-fort carried out from 1981 to 1987. The abundant finds correspond well to the radiocarbon dates. Two peaks of human activity at Djakovo-type sites occurred in the fifth to the third centuries BC and the first to the fourth centuries AD. Agriculture and cattle breeding formed the economic basis. Bronze ornaments and clay cult artefacts prove the idea that the population of the Moskva river basin had a tribal identity in the first half of the first millennium AD.