Klaipėdos universitetas

This paper presents the findings of a research project aimed at reconstructing the subsistence

The article presents the data from Kakliniškės 7 settlement site, discovered and excavated in 2020 during the construction of the gas pipeline. The rich and representative collection of pottery and archaeobotanical material gathered in the site have provided valuable data on the hitherto unknown 4th century BC in Lithuania. Pottery such as that found at Kakliniškės 7 has not previously been identified, and is therefore referred to here as Kakliniškės Ware. These are pots with slightly curved walls, rounded shoulders and vertical rims, featuring a striated surface topped with an additional coarse layer. The defined attributes of this new type of pottery have allowed the identification of the same ware in other settlement and burial sites in southeastern Lithuania and the Trans-Nemunas region. All of these settlement sites share some common features; most likely they are the sites of short-lived farmsteads belonging to highly dispersed settlements. Such data allow us to hypothesise a hitherto unidentified cultural group that briefly spread in southern Lithuania in the 4th century BC. This challenges the prevailing model of a static cultural development and a homogeneous material culture in the 1st millennium BC in all of eastern Lithuania. Our data show that the cultural situation here was much more dynamic than previously thought.

Development of agriculture is a substantial element of a balanced development of a country, comprising the development of agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors as well as the aggregate of other economic, social, and ecological activities related to the rural environment. The two main types of state aid provided to agriculture and rural development include direct and indirect support. The state aid shall be fully consistent with the basic guidelines of the European Community regarding the support for agriculture. The aim of the research is to discuss the legal regulation in the sphere of state aid allocation and to analyse the dynamics and impact of allocated national subsidies for the development of agriculture and rural development. Currently, the requirements for allocation state aid in the form of subsidies undergo fundamental amendments within the framework of simplification of regulatory enactments of the EU CAP. The amendments relate to both the content and procedures of the requirements. The goal is to speed up the conformation and approval of state aid payments and to simplify the requirements for allocation of subsidies. It is envisaged that the amendments would not affect the targets of subsidies but they would provide more earmarked state support.

A hoe is a hand tool which appeared in Lithuania in post-glacial times together with the first population. Later, in the Mesolithic, the hoe became a universal tool used for versatile foraging purposes. Only antler hoes are known from these periods. The same function of hoes continued into the Neolithic/Bronze Age, with the only difference that their shapes changed, adapting to new work related to the cultivation of the first crops. In the Neolithic, stone and wooden hoes appeared along with antler hoes. In the Bronze Age, the function of hoes remained the same as in earlier times, but their wider use was related to hoefarming. The shape of hoes was changing, especially of snake-head hoes, which could be used for various ritual ceremonies. Only in the Middle to Late Bronze Age did the Neolithisation process come to an end, with the development of slash-and-burn agriculture and the domestication of animals. The first horn ards appeared in the Late Bronze Age.

In this review of pollen data from the South Swedish uplands, evidence is presented of colonisation and strong agricultural expansion during the 11th to 13th centuries, followed by farm abandonment and land use change during the 14th to 15th centuries. The latter is associated with the Black Death and the late medieval crisis. Pollen data show that abandonment in the uplands resulted in the regrowth of woodland, but also in land use change from cereal growing to grazing. Similar cycles of agricultural expansion and decline are identified also from earlier periods during the Iron Age, which highlights the sensitive character of upland agriculture and settlement.

Numerous researchers have stressed significance of tooth wear scoring for evaluation of earlier nutrition patterns and cultural practices. The aim of this study was to evaluate dental occlusal wear in several representative samples. The hypothesis tested was if transition from foraging subsistence to agriculture and later social stratification indeed was reflected by dental wear changes. According to results, the remarkable changes in nutrition patterns in the Baltic region occurred only in the Iron Age, which does not correspond with “classical” Neolithization model. The next substantial change in dental wear patterns is connected with increased social stratification in Late Medieval period.

If you make your way through the Gotlandic landscape today, you can still see agricultural remains originating from cultivation that took place two-three thousand years ago. The once cultivated land displays itself as systems of conjoined plots surrounded by baulks. The concern of this paper is the social implications this kind of agriculture had during the Pre-Roman Iron Age (500 BC-AD). This was a time when the practice was conventional and field systems were part of people’s surroundings. How did an established, yet changeable landscape structure affect people, and what values, apart from strictly nutritional, did cultivation offer them?

Analysis of the contemporary Lithuanian historiography indicates a lack of research by historians of the socio-economic aspects of Klaipėda’s post-war history. Methods of settling the rural territory of Klaipėda region and the Klaipėda-city are examined. The specifics of involving specialists from various sectors in the reconstruction and the activities of the Soviet Lithuanian leadership are discussed.