Archaeologia Baltica

The paper analyses the relationship between the growth of the transit infrastructure and the developments in Tilsit in the period 1514 to 1552. The place of Tilsit in the competition between the merchants of Gdansk, Königsberg and Kaunas for the transit of goods by the River Neman is discussed. The paper reveals how, due to the geo-political circumstances, Königsberg managed to establish itself and to subordinate Tilsit to its trading system. It examines how and why Tilsit turned from being an outer castle settlement (Flecken) to the first town established in the Duchy of Prussia. The dynamics of the growth of the number of inns in Tilsit, their ownership, and the official and family relationships of the owners are examined, as is the weight and the role of innkeepers in the process of Tilsit turning into a town.

The Grobiņa archaeological complex includes multiple Curonian and Scandinavian first millennium burial sites, dwellings and hill-forts. Until now, more extensive research has been carried out on the Scandinavian barrow and flat burial fields, and on a small scale on the Curonian burial grounds; but less attention has been paid to examining dwellings. Excavation materials have only been partly publicised. During the latest research, the habitation period of the hill-fort has been determined, and the dwelling areas on both banks of the River Ālande have been determined and specified. Multiple issues have been overviewed in relation to Grobiņa archaeological site complex: the population in the Grobiņa region during the middle and latter part of the first millennium; and the interaction between Curonian and Scandinavian cultures.

Freshwater fish could provide the stable resource base that made possible permanent settlement in lake basins during the Mesolithic and Neolithic in the eastern Baltic region, but the utilisation of this resource required the development of a body of cultural knowledge and techniques for fishing in different seasons, corresponding to the changes in environmental conditions and the behaviour of fish. This paper examines Stone Age fishing techniques from a seasonal aspect, in the light of ethnographic accounts of traditional fishing.

Analysis of the contemporary Lithuanian historiography indicates a lack of research by historians of the socio-economic aspects of Klaipėda’s post-war history. Methods of settling the rural territory of Klaipėda region and the Klaipėda-city are examined. The specifics of involving specialists from various sectors in the reconstruction and the activities of the Soviet Lithuanian leadership are discussed.

This paper describes traces of human activities in the lower reaches of the River Jägala (North Estonia) from the Mesolithic till the Middle Ages. Attention is paid to the conditions essential to life and how people adjusted to them in the Prehistoric period and the Middle Ages. Also, the topic of the ritual landscape is discussed and the possible religious and ritual significance of the landscape analysed. This paper also tries to find an answer to the question whether people in Prehistoric times were only guided by economic considerations, or if there were also other aspects that attracted them near the banks of the River Jägala.