Archaeologia Baltica

This paper discusses one of the most characteristic hunter-gatherer osseous implements — the

This paper focuses on an issue that was, and still remains, unsolved in Baltic Stone Age archaeology: the dating of the very end of the period of Swiderian culture. This time, the questions raised are what cultural unit (or units) should be considered as the last Swiderians, and who were the last tanged point users in general? In addition, the latest AMS 14C dates from the Mesolithic Pabartoniai 1 site in central Lithuania are taken into consideration within the archaeological context recorded during excavations in 2014–2016. Several archaeological objects – flint artefacts, knapped sandstone pebbles, burnt material and a few archaeological features – that were eliminated from the Late Mesolithic horizon and hypothetically interpreted as preexistant, are discussed as maybe belonging to the Late Swiderian archaeological horizon. This data suggests some alternative insights into what was previously declared about the chronology of the last Swiderians: it brings up the very slight possibility that this culture could have lasted as long as up to the early Boreal period, or around 400 years later than the formerly agreed dating. However, this study should be seen as the very first step in the discussion, which still needs argumentation and other case studies to be carried out until the hypothesis is proven.

In 2004, an archaeological survey was carried out in Aukštumala upland bog (in the Šilutė district in western Lithuania), during which the remains of settlements from the Late Palaeolithic and Middle Mesolithic periods were discovered. These were the first sites from the Late Glacial and Early Holocene periods to be found in the lower reaches of the River Nemunas. The chronology and topography of the sites helped to identify the chronology of the area’s population, and to localise the natural environment in which the people of these periods lived. Based on the typology of the discovered artefacts, manufactured flint items in the Palaeolithic settlement were identified as being close to Late Arensburgian culture, and those of the Middle Mesolithic to Maglemosian or Early Nemunas culture.

Flints from the Late Bronze Age (Roman Period?) Naudvaris cemetery (in the Jurbarkas district) and the Iron Age Kernavė settlement (in the Širvintos district) in Lithuania were analysed functionally and from other points of view. The results are presented in the context of key issues on flint processing and use in Lithuania and Poland during the first millennium BC and the first millennium AD when metals were available.

This article addresses the complicated issues of the primary population of the forest zone in Eastern Europe at the turn of the Pleistocene-Holocene and the forms of its occupation by humans.