Tiltai

Having analysed the forms of the shapes of the ethnic musical instruments of the mankind, the data of the research leads to the presumption that the musical instruments convey the images of the fauna, mode of life, which reflects on very ancient processes of the humanity. The great part of the images of these instruments shows not only the animal kingdom and tools of everyday life, but also the ancient totemic world outlook and the means of burying – process of traveling to ‘another’ world. These means were canoes, boats and even sea ships. Connection with the water and sea propose the idea about the features concerning two cultures – fishing and shipping. The reflections and relics are evident in the shapes of the ethnic musical instruments of mankind. However, the ‘Sea’ culture is noticeable only in the civilisations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece and in the traditions of using the musical instruments of the current people living in these areas. The ‘Water’ culture relates with fishing in the local rivers and lakes and is evident in the traditions of many nations of the world. The images of the fishing culture are the most noticeable feature of the instruments of the Baltic people.

In this study, an NPZD model and a trophic network model that contains organism groups on the higher trophic levels were developed and linked using the “bottom-up control” approach. Such a linkage of models provides the possibility to use the advantages of both models; reproducing of the erratic behaviour of nutrients and plankton as realistic as possible, while still taking the more complex organisms in the trophic network, which respond to external forcing in a larger time scale. The models developed in this study were applied to the Curonian Lagoon that is an important estuarine ecosystem for Lithuania. The tests and simulations have proven that the results of the NPZD model were accurate enough for representing the nutrient and phytoplankton dynamics in the Curonian Lagoon as well as spatial differences which are of ecological interest. Linkage with trophic network model demonstrated NPZD model results to be consistent with the Curonian Lagoons ecosystem. The modelling results showed that primary production is relatively high in the Curonian Lagoon and is unlikely to be controlled by the organisms that are on the higher trophic levels of the food web. Analysis of the NPZD model scenarios with different nutrients inputs revealed that phosphorus is the main limiting nutrient for primary production in the Curonian Lagoon. However, different combinations of nitrogen and phosphorus inputs control the relative abundance of different phytoplankton groups. Investigation of reaction of ecosystem to water temperature increase showed that the temperature increase finally leads to decrease of available phytoplankton to upper levels of the food web.

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.