Archaeologia Baltica

The remains of a Medieval harbour were discovered in Puck in 1977. Preliminary research was conducted the next year by Wiesław Stępień. The site consists of a set of timber construction remains, located on the ground and strengthened with fascine, between which fragments of ceramics appear, especially in the area of the base of the pier. There are also a lot of pieces of simply processed trunks and branches stripped of bark nearby. Also, some scattered pieces of oak logs with yoke openings have been found lying distributed between the piles. Some help in attempting to reconstruct their arrangement comes from the mooring piles, which have a characteristic rectangular cross-section, and are still located on the sea bed. Pieces of five wrecks (one log boat, and four made from planks) have been found between the harbour constructions. Looking at the chronological arrangement of the site, created slowly on the basis of results obtained from dendrochronological analysis, and supplemented with radiological research, we can assume that the harbour was in use between the tenth and the 14th centuries.

This article discusses issues related to pile-dwelling settlements in Lithuania. It offers a detailed study of the archaeological and osteological material found at the Žemaitiškė 2 pile-dwelling settlement, as well as palynological and radiocarbon research into the settlement’s cultural layer. The article discusses the wood anatomy of pile-dwellings, their dendrochronological dating, and the types of construction material. The studies show that the construction of pile-dwellings in Lithuania began in the Late Neolithic Age, whereas the tradition of living on pile platforms existed throughout the Bronze Age.

Ostrow Lednicki, an island situated in Lake Lednica between Gniezno and Poznań, is an important archaeological site from the period of the beginnings of the Polish state. In the tenth and 11th centuries, apart from Gniezno, Poznań and Giecz, the town, which has been preserved together with the remains of a stone palace, was one of the main towns of the state of Mieszko I and Bolesław I the Brave. The significance of Ostrow Lednicki in the Early Middle Ages is also emphasised by two bridges leading to the island, the Gniezno bridge from the east, and, the Poznań bridge from the west, which mark an important communication route in that period between Poznań and Gniezno. With the exception of towns, bridges like this were the largest engineering constructions of the epoch in the Slavic world. Systematic underwater studies of the remains of the bridges were undertaken in 1982, and have been carried out with intervals until today. In 2000 and 2001, the exploration of the west bridge was supported financially by the Foundation for Polish Science. It was concerned in particular with building a special apparatus for the conservation of movable monuments after excavating them during underwater studies in the area of the bridge’s location and found by means of metal detectors used in the close vicinity of the west bridge. These studies yielded a large number of artefacts, enriching our knowledge of the material culture of the Early Middle Ages. The military finds, consisting, so far, of over 150 axes and several dozen spearheads and javelins, are exceptionally important. This unique collection of military objects has no counterpart in European archaeology.

The article presents the latest data on ships sunk in Lithuanian territorial waters of the Baltic Sea obtained during archaeological research conducted by the Underwater Archaeology Group of Klaipėda University. The article contains detailed descriptions of the ways these ships were wrecked as found in historical sources from the 14th to the early 20th century, the localisation of newly found remains of wooden ships, data of their study and possibilities for dating them.

The article is devoted to the new results of underwater archaeological investigations of dugouts from the Lake Plateliai (Žemaitija, West Lithuania) and the cultural landscape of their sites. In this article we will discuss on three dugouts, found in the surroundings of Pilies Island (Castle Island) and peninsula of Šventorkalnis (Saint Mountain) in the western part of the lake. Dugout Nr. 1 was found not far from the remains of the bridge. Dugouts Nr. 1-2 distinguish for their decorative details – back parts are ‘gracefully’ raised, there are some other decorative as well as practical elements. Dugout Nr. 3 was found not far away from Pilies Island, southwards from the remains of the old bridge, which connected the island with the Šventorkalnis peninsula. The absence of the front part of the dugout and the stones inside it give us a hint that the dugout might have been sunk deliberately. Most probably, the dugouts were mainly used for communication between the peninsula (the manor) and the island (the castle). All three dugouts were found in the line, where the distance between the peninsula and the island is the shortest. These coinsides with safe sailing manner – to reach land choosing the shortest way.