Klaipėdos universitetas

Late Medieval and Early Modern Period stoneware production is often found in archaeological excavations around the world. The identification and analysis of these objects provides information about technical innovations, long-distance trade, and social and economic changes in societies. Stoneware vessels were used for pouring and storing liquids, and thus indicate changing drinking habits. Vessels are dated and classified by their surface treatment, the colour of the stoneware, and their decorative motifs, and are then associated with specific manufacturing centres by using a comparative method. The stoneware in Vilnius was produced at production sites in Siegburg, Cologne, Frechen, Raeren, Westerwald and Waldenburg. The earliest stoneware vessels could be associated with newcomers to the town; while in later periods their distribution indicates higher demand and usage in town dwellers’ households.

Ten apostle spoons have been found in Lithuania during archaeological excavations and site surveys, and two have been brought to the museum by people who found them on their land. This article discusses their identification, material, context and provenance. Additionally, it is argued that apostle spoons, which for a long time were thought to be only used as christening gifts, had other purposes. The distribution map reveals that all the apostle spoons were found inland, with the largest number concentrated in Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The apostle spoons that were found in Lithuania were probably made in the 17th century, and used until the first half of the 18th century. The features of the figures indicate that they were made in and imported from England and continental Europe. Of the 12 spoons analysed, only five apostles could be identified with certainty, and they correspond well with the most popular saints and names in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The political and economic situation in the southeast Baltic region changed dramatically when two main powers, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Order, emerged in the 13th century. These political structures tried to involve local communities in the social organisation of their newly established states. Archaeological material (pottery) is analysed in this article. It could help us understand the processes happening in what is now western Lithuania during the Medieval period. Local and Western pottery is assessed as evidence of contacts between the Crusaders and the local people. These contacts are interpreted as part of the cultural interaction process between the two different communities

Amber discs with cross decoration are the research subject of this article. The article discusses their proliferation, typology and chronology. The amber disc from the Daktariškė 5 settlement is analysed in greater detail: its decoration, the number of holes, regularities, spectral analysis and possible symbolic meanings are discussed.

The elk staff is a characteristic Stone Age artefact from the Baltic region. The most elegant specimens have been found in the Olenij Ostrov burial site and various Stone Age sites in Šventoji. In 2016, the use-wear of artefacts found in the Stone Age sites of Šventoji was studied microscopically under a magnification factor of 690. The research effort also resulted in the successful dating of one of the staves found at the third archaeological site of Šventoji. The article presents the results and findings of the study, supplementing what is already known about the artefacts.

This article discusses the imagery of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines which accompanied eleven burials in the Stone Age cemetery at Zvejnieki, Latvia. These burials date to the sixth, fifth and early-mid fourth millennia cal BC, according to radiocarbon dates of human remains from ten of the eleven burials, three of which were dated for this paper. The figurines are considered in terms of their characteristic formal qualities and their position within graves. Parallels are drawn with similar finds from elsewhere in the Baltic region. The imagery employed appears to be based on observations of nature, the fishing and hunting lifeways of these communities, and their beliefs concerning life after death, which were not apparently affected by the transitions from Mesolithic to Neolithic, and between Early Neolithic Narva culture and Middle Neolithic Typical Comb Ware Culture.

The paper discusses Early Neolithic pottery of Dubičiai type from western Belarus. Its most distinctive features include organic temper in the clay mass, a belt of deep round pits under the rim, strokes made by a round stick (‘hooves’), and thin slanting grooved lines or slanting decoration with such lines. The hypotheses on the origins of Dubičiai-type pottery are also discussed. According to many scholars, the area of occurrence of Dubičiai-type pottery includes the Belarusian part of the River Nioman (except for the basin of the River Vilija), the left bank of the Upper Prypiac basin, southern Lithuania, part of northeast Poland, and the northern part of Volhynia. At the same time, D.Y. Telegin, O.M. Titova and G.V. Okhrimenko distinguish Volhynian culture in the region of the same name. It has many similar traits with Prypiac Nioman culture. The scale of differences between Early Neolithic pottery from western Palessie and Volhynia and Dubičiai-type pottery from the region of the River Nemunas allows us to consider Volhynian culture not as a separate culture, but as a local variant of Prypiac-Nioman