The Final Palaeolithic Hunter-Gatherer Colonisation of Lithuania in Light of Recent Palaeoenvironmental Research

Abstract

This paper critically reviews the culture-historical framework for the re-colonisation of Lithuania during the Final Palaeolithic in the light of recent palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental data. We argue that the existing chronology of the Final Palaeolithic in Lithuania suffers from an undue western European orientation grounded in research history, and that it likely requires reconsideration. The lack of well-constrained excavations, the paucity of both radiocarbon dates and of palaeoenvironmental data pertinent to the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT) lead us to be cautious with regard to the existing chronology. In reviewing the typological classification of the relevant lithic material, we argue in particular that there is a lack of reliable evidence not only for Hamburgian occupation but also for any substantive Federmessergruppen, Brommean and Ahrensburgian presence. Whilst Swiderian sites are better represented, a large majority of these may date to the early Holocene. In light of the current evidence, we question the usefulness of existing archaeological taxonomies for this period and favour a model of punctuated colonisation for the Lithuanian territory, where periodic and ephemeral forager presences are interspersed with longer periods of depopulation. In closing, we outline avenues for future research in the region.

Eight New Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene AMS Dates from the Southeastern Baltic

“…All dating attempts reported in this paper were successful and have provided five new Late Pleistocene and three new Early Holocene dates. Prior to this study, there was no secure evidence for hunter-gatherer presence in the region earlier than GI-1c-a (Siemaszko 1999; Ivanovaitė and Riede 2018). The worked antler from Vysokoye is now the earliest evidence of human presence in the Eastern Baltic after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).…”

“…The dating results of the antler shaft and the uniserial harpoon are not in agreement with previous attempts to date these items based on established typological assessment. This emphasizes the need to review existing classifications based on typology and type-based comparisons with other regions (see also Ivanovaitė and Riede 2018). As a result, the new dates reported here stimulate novel ways of viewing the Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic chronology in the southeastern Baltic and shed a new light on the earliest prehistory of the region.…”

All these Fantastic Cultures? Research History and Regionalization in the Late Palaeolithic Tanged Point Cultures of Eastern Europe

“…Later, this culture was rejected by some Lithuanian scholars and replaced with a classification that split the same material (Šatavičius, 2016). A recent review of the evidence has failed to find support for such detailed splitting (Ivanovaitė & Riede, 2018).…”

“…Similarly, a soul-searching debate rocked the Levantine Epipalaeolithic in the 1990s, pitching those who saw material culture variation as reflecting ethnic units (Fellner, 1995;Kaufman, 1995;Goring-Morris, 1996;Phillips, 1996) against those who were sceptical of such attributions for epistemological reasons (Clark, 1996) or preferred behavioural ecological explanations (Neeley & Barton, 1994; Barton & Neeley, 1996). In addition, it has been remarked in relation to the European and Levantine Middle/Upper Palaeolithic (Felgenhauer, 1996;Tomášková, 2003;Clark & Riel-Salvatore, 2006;Shea, 2014), as well as for the Late Palaeolithic in northern Asia (Vasil'ev, 2001), the Upper Volga region (Lisitsyn, 2017), and Lithuania (Ivanovaitė & Riede, 2018) that many, if not most, of the analytical units in use today are beset by mdash;at times subtle, at other times critical-local, regional, and national biases.…”