Klaipėdos universitetas

The earliest settlement of Latvia occurred at the very end of the Late Glacial, after the retreat of the ice sheet. Important evidence of this earliest occupation is the well-known site Salaspils Laukskola. Previous research has focused on the typological aspects of this assemblage, and the use of lithic raw materials, suggesting an affiliation to the Swidry tradition. However, a wider technological perspective on this assemblage comprising a rich lithic inventory has recently proven fruitful. We present a detailed new technological analysis of the Laukskola assemblage, as well as five small lithic assemblages from Latvia based on a chaîne opératoire approach. While supporting the Swidry connection, this allows for a renewed discussion of the Final Palaeolithic settlement of Latvia, and its relationship with adjacent areas of northeast Europe.

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.

The East Baltic Stone Age is well known for its rich array of bone and antler artefacts. The collections consist of stray finds as well as inventory from stratified settlement sites. Seven hunting and fishing tool complexes, made from bone and antler, were singled out in Latvia, characterising each stage of the Baltic Stone Age. The oldest of these complexes was formed at the very end of the Late Glacial period when the ice sheet retreated and the conditions for human habitation were created. This complex consists of 18 bone and antler artefacts, harpoons of archaic forms and spearheads, found in Latvia and Lithuania. Unfortunately, they are all stray finds and determined as Late Palaeolithic only typologically. Harpoons in similar morphological forms are known from all of northwest and Central Europe, associated with Late Palaeolithic reindeer hunter cultures. Some of the finds were made from reindeer antler. The new carbon 14 data of reindeer bones, obtained in Helsinki University by H. Jungner, testified to the presence of reindeer in the Eastern Baltic from Alleröd times till the beginning of the Preboreal climatic period.