Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The article presents a description of the service and contributions to Lithuania’s armed forces made by Petras Tarasenka, a Lithuanian archaeologist, prose writer, museum employee, pedagogue, and army officer. Tarasenka’s life is traced from 1919, when he joined the Lithuanian army until 1932, when he was promoted to the rank of colonel and retired to the reserves. It also describes his involvement in Lithuanian Wars of Independence, the march to Klaipėda, and his accomplishments in military instruction and preparing teaching aids for officers. It investigates the issues of an officer retiring from active service and overviews his military awards and decorations as well as his military positions and jobs. It presents chronological and geographical links between his military service and his significant archaeological contributions.

This article presents an investigation of the classi'cation, chronology, production, and usage of the technical ceramics from the ‘Didysis’ Narkūnai Hillfort (Utena District, Leliūnai Eldership). An attempt to resolve the problem of classifying vessels as miniature cups or crucibles was made using XRF, microchemical qualitative, SEM/EDX, and x-radiography analyses. Based on the results, a significant quantity of the miniature cups previously interpreted as crucibles are now considered to be unrelated to metallurgical activities. The revision of these technical ceramics is prompting a reassessment of the itinerant metalworker hypothesis as the collection is sparse, indicating a specialized metalworking level and an episodic chronological character.

The paper discusses bone and antler artefacts found during the excavations at Tartu Road 1 in Tallinn during 2011–2012. Most of the bone finds date to the 14th–16th centuries, the latest to the 18th–19th centuries. Both artefacts and working debris have been found, the most abundant material among the debris being waste from bead and button making. Antler artefacts and working debris were also found. Both the plot’s location and the house’s size and spatial division point to a public building. A guesthouse or tavern at a river next to a bridge could have been a suitable stopping place for itinerant craftsmen who manufactured their products on the spot. The few Modern Age items are common articles used in domestic households. The buttons and button making debris belong to the 18th century.

Within the framework of the Lithuanian Mummy Project, a scientific investigation of the mummified human remains found in Lithuania, the authors of this paper attempted to gather as much information as possible in order to promote and expand the knowledge about the corpses held in the crypt of the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius. The data collected enabled the history of the church and its burials over the course of time to be reconstructed, providing an original and unique window into Lithuania’s past.

The Nida site is an extensively investigated Neolithic settlement with extraordinary rich, Rzucewo culturematerial (3200–2400 cal BC). A special type of fint tool with polished edges is well known there and is characteristic to exclusively the Rzucewo culture. It has been called a polished ‘scraper’ by previous researchers with a strong affliation for utilitarian functions. However, no arguments for their use as a hide

The article aims to introduce palaeodemography, the study of the demography of ancient populations based on information estimated from human remains. The article is composed of four parts. First, the basics of demography are briefly described, giving the methodological background of palaeodemography and a couple of examples to illustrate that interest in demography has very deep roots in the study of prehistoric and historic human populations. Next, it defines the concepts of palaeodemography and closely related disciplines. Third, it describes the main developmental stages of paleodemographic studies from their origin to the present, focusing mainly on the scientific experience of Western countries. Finally, it presents the main issues, possible solutions, and research trends in modern palaeodemography.

The article discusses a new Late Neolithic burial investigated in the Upper Neman region in 2014. A flat grave in the Corded Ware culture‘s range was found at the multi-period Drazdy 12 site in Western Belarus. The special features of the burial and grave goods correspond to the characteristics of the local ‘corded’groups as well as the Middle Dnieper culture. Some characteristics could have originated in the Globular Amphora culture‘s traditions. Based on the typological criteria, the burial was dated to the second half of the 3rd millennium BC.

The article analyses the problem of how representative is the map of Lithuanian archaeological sites. It distinguishes the main factors affecting this representativity: the disappearance of archaeological sites, the methods and intensity of the conducted searches, and the principles used in the creation of the maps (or lists). The conclusion is drawn that the general representativity of the Lithuanian archaeological map is currently very low, the main reason for this being the failure to conduct systematic surveys in the search for new sites. The representativity of various types of sites differs. The representativity of settlements is currently the lowest, but it is also not satisfactory for other types of sites. At the present level of representativity, in analysing questions connected with the systems, density, and evenness of the territory’s habitation, it is essential to take this into consideration. Many questions in general cannot be analysed very well owing to the lack of data. Therefore at the present time, the orientation should be more towards the systematic search for new archaeological sites.

The chronology of the Lithuanian Iron Age has up until now been based exclusively on the typology of the finds, usually discovered at burial sites, but the effort to successfully employ typology in dating burial complexes is hindered by a great lack of reference points based on absolute dates. An attempt to fill this gap was made by the scientific project ‘Turning-points in the Iron Age East Lithuania (on the basis of AMS dating)’ during which 30 burials in East Lithuanian barrows were dated using the AMS 14C method. The obtained dates are being published in this article. In selecting the samples, an effort was made to cover all of the chronological horizons of the East Lithuanian barrow culture, as much barrow and burial construction diversity as possible, and as many artefact types as possible. 11 inhumations and 19 cremations were dated. Many of the radiocarbon dates seemed surprisingly old even in those instances where the typology dating is hardly questionable and is clearly connected with European typology schemes. This phenomenon should probably be explained by the freshwater reservoir effect. In order to verify these premises and to evaluate the possible significance of the effect’s impact and the possibility of eliminating this effect, additional investigations need to be conducted.