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Highlightsd Yersinia pestis is discovered in a 5,000-year-old huntergatherer from Latvia d Y. pestis emerged 7,000 years ago at the beginning of the Neolithic d The infected individual might represent a case of septicemic plague due to zoonosis

History of the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in the eastern Baltic region and its implications for the origin and immigration routes of the recent northern European wild reindeer populations PIRKKO UKKONEN, LEMBI LÕ UGAS, ILGA ZAGORSKA, LIGITA LUKŠ EVICA, ERVINS LUKŠ EVICS, LINAS DAUGNORA AND HÖ GNE JUNGNER BOREAS Ukkonen, P., Lõ ugas, L., Zagorska, I., Lukševica, L., Lukševics, E., Daugnora, L. & Jungner, H. 2006 (May): History of the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in the eastern Baltic region and its implications for the origin and immigration routes of the recent northern European wild reindeer populations. Boreas, Vol. 35, pp. 222 Á/230. Oslo. ISSN 0300-9483.A total of 45 subfossil reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) antlers and bones Á/ artefacts excluded Á/ have been found over the years in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The relatively high number of specimens suggests a stable residence of the species in the eastern Baltic region. For the first time, 12 of these finds were radiocarbon-dated. The ages of the samples range between 12 085 and 9970 14 C yr BP (14 180 Á/11 280 cal. yr BP), and cover the Lateglacial and early Holocene, a time period during which climatic conditions shifted from periglacial to temperate. The dates suggest a rapid colonization of the area during the deglaciation period and a local extinction around the Pleistocene Á/Holocene boundary. The results of the study do not support the theory that the recent wild reindeer populations of northern Europe had their origin in the Late Weichselian reindeer populations of the eastern Baltic region.

The paper reflects upon recent international research at Zvejnieki in northern Latvia, a renowned complex of a burial ground and two settlement sites used in the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Since its discovery and first excavations in the 1960s, Zvejnieki continues to produce evidence that provides new grounds for understanding mortuary practises and ancient lifeways. This information is relevant for other contemporary sites in Europe revealing new and hitherto unexpected elements of burial traditions. It is suggested that the Zvejnieki population was partly mobile, and the site was one of the places to bury the dead. The ancestral link was established through transportation and use of occupational debris from more ancient sites and through the incorporation of earlier burial space or even burials into the new graves. The depth of a burial also appears to be a significant variable in ancient mortuary practices.

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The prehistoric shell middens of Atlantic Europe consist of marine molluscs, but the eastern Baltic did not have exploitable marine species. Here the sole recorded shell midden, at Riņņukalns in Latvia, is on an inland lake and is formed of massive dumps of freshwater shells. Recent excavations indicate that they are the product of a small number of seasonal events during the later fourth millennium BC. The thickness of the shell deposits suggests that this was a special multi-purpose residential site visited for seasonal aggregations by pottery-using hunter-gatherer communities on the northern margin of Neolithic Europe.