Tiltai

This study examines the influence of historical imprints on attitudes towards volunteering among Lithuanians. Using imprinting theory, we explored how the historically evolved Soviet imprints have influenced modern attitudes toward formal volunteering. Quantitative data analysis (N=358) revealed that some Soviet imprints might have decayed, while some were strong enough to survive until modern times to affect attitudes towards formal volunteering. This study examined three Soviet attitudinal imprints: negative attitudes towards non-governmental organisations, external power primacy, and the authoritarian outlook. The results showed that while some imprints might have decayed, some have survived until today. Our findings underscore the enduring impact of Soviet imprints, and suggest that addressing these historical influences is crucial for enhancing volunteering among citizens of post-Soviet regions.

In this article there are being analyzed the natural and social economic structures of Lithuanian coastal strip. The research is based on survey about the hindrances and proposed suggestions for sustainable development. There are presented authors’ results about geographic profile of Lithuania’s coastal region, degree of exploitation and processes of spatial planning, suggestions for improvement of sustainable development of coastal strip. There are distinguished the types of bad examples as institutional, projects related, shortage of financial issues, private housing and the types of good examples as legislative, institutional, projects related, NGOs related for exploitation and sustainable development of coastal strip.

This article presents the review of the development of Lithuanian higher schools during the Soviet period. Chronological data of establishment and transformations of Lithuanian high-schools in 1940–1990 are presented, beginning with the Soviet occupation and ending with the Revival events. The article highlights the structure and specifics of Soviet Lithuanian high-schools, the content of specialists training, provisions of science and studies. Chronologically integral, comprehensive scientific works about higher education development in Soviet Lithuania have not been prepared yet. Most of the information about this period is provided by individual archival documents, Soviet periodical press, commemorative books, different high school publications on the history of their institution, as well as individual researchers memoirs, some features of the development of higher education are revealed in individual scientific works. This article provides an summarized material of various authors and sources and integral analysis of Lithuanian higher education during the Soviet period.

Since 2010, several archaeological sites in Lithuania have been geomagnetically surveyed, as part of a German-Lithuanian cooperation project. Within the framework of this cooperation, the Ėgliškiai/Anduliai cemetery, the Taurapilis barrow site, Taurapilis and Opstainiai/Vilkyškiai (outer settlements), and Jakai/Sudmantai (the enclosure) have been investigated. In almost all the sites, features and structures were detected that enable us to make some initial statements about the structure and dimensions of the archaeological monuments. For some sites, the surveys also provided very precise and hitherto unknown information about the context of the settlement. These new results show clearly the potential of non-invasive, especially geomagnetic, methods for archaeological purposes. However, it should be admitted that only a combination of several methods and tools enables a maximum level of knowledge and information on the scientific value and potential of archaeological sites and landscapes. The task for the coming years must therefore focus on the application and combination of further noninvasive geophysical (ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity) and remote sensing methods in archaeological surveys.

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.