Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The first osseous finds discovered in the village of Šarnelė in the 20th century during the straightening of the Varduva riverbed, and the site that was later excavated by archaeologists here, have been mentioned in the archaeological literature several times, highlighting the history and circumstances of these discoveries and categorising the artefacts into types. This paper presents the latest research on the six stray bone and antler artefacts found in the Šarnelė village between 1940 and 1965 during the dredging of the Varduva riverbed. Investigations of these artefacts, which began in 2016, have shown that the environment of the former Lake Ertenis is likely to have been visited by humans since the Final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, but artefacts associated with the Subneolithic and Bronze Age are also present. Recent research on these finds has been initiated within the framework of projects funded by the Lithuanian Research Council, which have refined the chronology of the artefacts using AMS 14C dating and the identification of the animal species according to ZooMS. Elements of their typological and decorative features have also been discussed. Although some results have already been published, this study presents all of the available research on the stray osseous finds from Šarnelė.