Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The elk staff is a characteristic Stone Age artefact from the Baltic region. The most elegant specimens have been found in the Olenij Ostrov burial site and various Stone Age sites in Šventoji. In 2016, the use-wear of artefacts found in the Stone Age sites of Šventoji was studied microscopically under a magnification factor of 690. The research effort also resulted in the successful dating of one of the staves found at the third archaeological site of Šventoji. The article presents the results and findings of the study, supplementing what is already known about the artefacts.

This article discusses the imagery of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines which accompanied eleven burials in the Stone Age cemetery at Zvejnieki, Latvia. These burials date to the sixth, fifth and early-mid fourth millennia cal BC, according to radiocarbon dates of human remains from ten of the eleven burials, three of which were dated for this paper. The figurines are considered in terms of their characteristic formal qualities and their position within graves. Parallels are drawn with similar finds from elsewhere in the Baltic region. The imagery employed appears to be based on observations of nature, the fishing and hunting lifeways of these communities, and their beliefs concerning life after death, which were not apparently affected by the transitions from Mesolithic to Neolithic, and between Early Neolithic Narva culture and Middle Neolithic Typical Comb Ware Culture.

In 2014 and 2015, new underwater archaeological sites were discovered in Lake Sāviena in the east of Latvia. The first site, according to c14 dating, goes back 4510 +/-55 years. In the other site, artefacts and ceramics from the Late Iron Age were discovered. Here, on the shore of the lake, adjacent cultural occupation of the settlement was discovered. It is possible to make preliminary conclusions that the shores of Lake Sāviena had been inhabited for a long time, which was certainly associated with the lake’s waters.

This article draws a comparison between the Stone Age zoomorphic and anthropomorphic images that have been found in present-day Lithuania and similar finds from across the Baltic region. Both the attribution of these artefacts to archaeological cultures and their dating are discussed. The article raises the question whether the different archaeological culture that each article belongs to is reflected in its form and style. The article also questions if the concept of archaeological culture is necessary when writing about Stone Age art.

This paper discusses recently published data on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) extracted from Stone Age burials in Lithuania in a broader European context, and data from modern Lithuanians on the basis of recent literature. Several major processes (initial Palaeolithic colonisation, recolonisation after the LGM and Younger Dryas cold relapse, the spread of the Neolithic, and possible small-scale migrations in the Eneolithic age) could have left traces on the modern gene pool. From four Lithuanian samples where data on mtDNA were available, one (Spiginas 4) belonged to haplogroup U4, and three (Donkalnis 1, and Kretuonas 1 and 3) to U5b2. In total, out of 17 individuals from Central and East European non-farming cultures (Mesolithic and Neolithic Ceramic, spanning a period from circa 7800 BC to 2300 BC), a majority of them had mtDNA type ‘U’. An exceptionally high incidence of U5-types (more than 45%) occurs among the modern Saami (Lapps) of northern Scandinavia, perhaps the closest modern European equivalent of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Genetic time estimates based on modern mtDNA have suggested that the U5-type arose by mutation about 50,000 to 40,000 years BP. This age implies that around the glacial maximum 20,000 years BP, U5 types were already present and could have repopulated Central and northern Europe as soon as northern areas were deglaciated. Both western (Franco-Cantabrian) and eastern (Pontic) refugia could be sources of this repopulation. In the recent Lithuanian population, U5 and U4 haplogroups are infrequent. The mtDNA homogeneity observed across modern Europe is a more recent phenomenon, less than 7,000 years old, according to these ancient mtDNA results. We can refer to the third millennium BC, internal European migrations from the Eneolithic that significantly modified the genetic landscape, as a time window little explored by archaeogeneticists. The imprecise chronology of mtDNA mutations should in the first instance be based on audited archaeological sources.