Klaipėdos universitetas

Selected find spots along the Swedish coast of the Baltic Sea are presented, in order to illustrate different ways in which hunter-gatherer societies related to the coast during the Mesolithic. Transformations of the landscape were mainly due to isostatic and eustatic changes. In the northern part, the land rose, forming new coasts and archipelagos at a speed that was noticeable even within one generation. Similar rapid changes occurred in the southern area, but in the opposite direction, with large areas of coast being submerged. Both physical and mental reactions to this are explored.

During excavations at the cemetery at Zvejnieki in northern Latvia in the 1960s and 1970s, more than 300 graves were excavated. At new excavations from 2005 to 2009, a double grave was found. Burial 316, a female, had an arrangement of amber pendants from the waist to the knee, while Burial 317, a male, had some beads around the head and around the lower legs. The double grave 316–317 proved to be the most richly furnished grave in the cemetery in terms of amber pendants. It has been dated to about 4000 calibrated BC. The double grave is located in the eastern part of the cemetery, where other graves of the same age with amber objects were situated.