The Structure of the Economy and Society in the Early Bronze Age in Lithuania
Volume 18 (2012): People at the Crossroads of Space and Time (Footmarks of Societies in Ancient Europe) II, pp. 28–42
Pub. online: 30 December 2012
Type: Article
Open Access
Open Access
Received
8 October 2012
8 October 2012
Revised
12 November 2012
12 November 2012
Accepted
22 December 2012
22 December 2012
Published
30 December 2012
30 December 2012
Abstract
The Early Bronze Age in Lithuania, and especially the final part, saw the most important changes in the structure of the
production economy and society. Unlike in Central or Western Europe, the Neolithic Revolution, as Vere Gordon Childe
understood it, was taking place in the east Baltic region at exactly that time, that is, the first half of the second millennium
BC. The communities which inhabited individual regions in Lithuania in the Early Bronze Age gave rise to a unique method
of economic management that to a large extent influenced the development of the structure of individual communities. In
this article, on the basis of archaeological, palynological and zooarchaeological material, we discuss the economic and social
structures of two distinct territorial community groups, one that lived at Šventoji on the Baltic coast, and one that lived inland
by Lake Kretuonas.