Stones, Bones, and Hillfort: Radiocarbon Dating of Ķivutkalns Bronze-Working Center

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The Bronze Age site of Ķivutkalns with its massive amount of archaeological artifacts and human remains is considered the largest bronze-working center in Latvia. The site is a unique combination of cemetery and hillfort believed to be built on top of each other. This work presents new radiocarbon dates on human and animal bone collagen that somewhat challenge this interpretation. Based on analyses using a Bayesian modeling framework, the present data suggest overlapping calendar year distributions for the contexts within the 1st millennium BC. The carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios indicate mainly terrestrial dietary habits of studied individuals and nuclear family remains buried in one of the graves. The older charcoal data may be subject to the old-wood effect and the results are partly limited by the limited amount of data and the 14 C calibration curve plateau of the 1st millennium BC. Therefore, the ultimate conclusions on contemporaneity of the cemetery and hillfort need to wait for further analyses on the massive amounts of bone material.

The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region

“…Additionally, D -statistics provide significantly positive results for D (Baltic BA, Baltic LN; X , Mbuti) when X was replaced by various agricultural populations of Europe and the Near East (Supplementary Table 2 ), which suggests that the formation of the Baltic BA gene pool was not completed by admixture between the Baltic LN population and foragers but involved additional gene-flow from outside the Baltic territory. Archaeological evidence supports that the site Kivutkalns, which is represented by 10 of our individuals, was a major bronze-working centre located on a trade route that opened to the Baltic Sea on the west and led inland following the Daugava river 31 , where contact to surrounding populations might have been common.…”

RE-EVALUATING THE BRONZE AND EARLIEST IRON AGE IN LATVIA: CHANGES IN BURIAL TRADITIONS IN THE LIGHT OF 14C DATES

“…Ķivutkalns is probably the most-researched Latvian Bronze Age site, with the largest number of 14 C dates. However, given the site's extensive material, the previously published dates are not exhaustive, especially given the recent controversy regarding 14 C dates and stratigraphy (Oinonen et al 2013;Vasks and Zariņa 2014). Additionally, the Ķivutkalns material is suitable for paired dating, given the good preservation and the terrestrial herbivore bones associated with some of the burials.…”

“…The global average Marine Reservoir Effect (MRE) is estimated to be~400 years; however, local variation is very common. In the Baltic region, the average MRE of the Baltic Sea is sometimes used (Pesonen et al 2012;Oinonen et al 2013). However, studies with higher resolution demonstrate that the Baltic Sea MRE has a high local variability, and there are regions where average estimates would generate false data (Lougheed et al 2013;Piličiauskas and Heron 2015).…”

“…The moderate δ 13 C and δ 15 N values (~-21 to -18‰ and 9-11‰, respectively) led researchers to conclude that the diet was generally terrestrial. The δ 15 N values were explained in terms of a large proportion of meat and dairy products, and the occasionally elevated δ 13 C as due to an addition of millet in the diet (Oinonen et al 2013;Vasks and Zariņa 2014). We now report stable isotope data of three more humans from Ķivutkalns and six from Reznes, and isotope data for two more horse teeth from Reznes (Table 1).…”

“…A hillfort established directly on top of a cemetery with no significant time distance is indeed a unique situation not only in the Eastern Baltic, but in a wider regional context as well. Issues with the chronological sequences and stratigraphy of the Ķivutkalns site have been discussed in detail by Oinonen et al (2013) and Vasks and Zariņa (2014).…”