Archaeologia Baltica

This article presents the aspect of the social work professionalization which responds to the new challenges of a global society that is the refugee migration. The refugee problem in the European Union has recently become one of the important social problems. Due to the political situation in Africa South European countries are already unable to manage the daily flow of refugees. EU Parliament is trying to solve this problem. Lithuania has to be ready to solve this problem as well. The country which receives refugees not only has to have the legal regulation of this process, but also the professionals who could ensure the success of their adaptation. The authors, using different empirical research materials which were conducted in Lithuania in the years 2011–2014, reveal the depth of the needs and the possibilities of the social work services while implementing these needs in the context of social services in Lithuania. This is the presentation of the experience available. This article can help you to assess the situation and the opportunities that are ahead for the Lithuanian society when helping to solve the problem of today’s refugees in the European Union. At the same time this article reveals one more aspect of the identity in the social work profession, revealing the depth of the social worker’s competencies in a changing society and his ability to operate in unspecified situations.

This article addresses intersections of migration and economic development as one of the most topical contemporary challenges inthe Baltic states. It uses empirical approach to compare governmental responses to recent economic crisis starting in 2008. Articleanalyses, how these responses were reflected in statistics revealing socio economic dynamics within years of crisis and beyond.Methods of comparing statistical and analysing secondary data are applied. All three states have similar future challenges of agingand declining population and see return migration as one of possible solutions to address this challenge. However, the processesin Estonia provide a better ground for its government to claim that the country makes effort to ensure more stable development.Also, the results demonstrate that Estonia displays more different trends, while Lithuania and Latvia are closer to each other in outmigrationtrends.

The study has been conducted within the ERASMUS+ KA2 partnership project “Improving the initial education of adult immigrants”. Research is based on the anonymous survey in which took part 1127 legal adult immigrants from outside the European Union. The study was performed in 2017 in the six European Union countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Belgium. The purpose of this article is to investigate how information about the host country before immigration is related to immigrants’ basic sociodemographic characteristics, i.e.: age, gender and education. Statistical data analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the information, which immigrants knew before their arrival in the host country, and education as well as age groups. However, there were no statistically significant differences found between the information, which immigrants knew before their arrival in the host country, and immigrants’ gender. Moreover, information that immigrants lack most prior to their arrival is related with health care and the employment system as well as the ability to learn the hosting country’s official language.

Between the 16th and the 18th centuries, the area known from 1920 to 1939 as the Klaipėda region (Memel territory) experienced a variety of migration flows, which have been described by researchers on several occasions. When considering issues of migration, among other data, scholars from different fields often interpret personal and place names found in historical records. Based on the historical onomastics of the Klaipėda region, this article deals with the oikonyms and personal names derived from etymons bearing the meaning ‘new settler’. It examines their distribution, evolution, etymology, and motives behind picking these onymons. The author draws on research methods of historical onomastics, along with an analysis of historical sources and genealogical information. In addition to suggesting mutual links between onyms (personal names and oikonyms) of Baltic origin, the author puts forward hypotheses about the directions of population migration in the northern area of what was then the Memel eldership (Hauptamt Memel). The paper aims to offer linguistic insights into possible migration trends in the Klaipėda region in the 16th to the 18th centuries, which could later be verified by historical research.

Three vast areas in northern Europe during the Roman Period are known for their people’s development of a distinctive viewpoint regarding the riding horse that was reflected in sacrificial rites (north Germany; the Jutland Peninsula; Zealand, Funen, other Baltic Sea islands, as well as southern Scandinavia) and burial rites (Dollkeim-Kovrovo, Sudovian, West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave cultures, and, in part, the Lower Nemunas and Bogaczewo cultures). The custom at the end of the second century and in the third century to bury a riding horse (usually only the horse’s head, head and legs, or individual teeth) with armed men was especially distinct in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture area. This burial rite feature distinguishes the mentioned cultural unit (Aistians) area from the communities of other Balts who lived in current Lithuanian territory. The burial rite features that had developed in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture area illustrate the warriors’ hierarchy and the military’s dependency on the society’s nobility that already existed in the Roman Period. These social structure features link the West Balt communities with the northern Germanic peoples. West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture was the northernmost barbaricum territory in which riding horses were so often buried with people.