The Northern Fringe of the Swiderian Technological Tradition: Salaspils Laukskola Revisited

Abstract

The earliest settlement of Latvia occurred at the very end of the Late Glacial, after the retreat of the ice sheet. Important evidence of this earliest occupation is the well-known site Salaspils Laukskola. Previous research has focused on the typological aspects of this assemblage, and the use of lithic raw materials, suggesting an affiliation to the Swidry tradition. However, a wider technological perspective on this assemblage comprising a rich lithic inventory has recently proven fruitful. We present a detailed new technological analysis of the Laukskola assemblage, as well as five small lithic assemblages from Latvia based on a chaîne opératoire approach. While supporting the Swidry connection, this allows for a renewed discussion of the Final Palaeolithic settlement of Latvia, and its relationship with adjacent areas of northeast Europe.

Stone Age imitation of a slotted bone point from Pärnu River (south-western Estonia)

“…The point from the Pärnu River is not the only object from the eastern Baltic mimicking the elements of slotted object technology. Two Stone Age bone arrowheads from Lake Lubāna in Latvia, probably from the beginning of the 9th millennium to the middle of the 6th millennium (Berg-Hansen et al 2019), provide close analogies. Both are interpreted as skeuomorphs of slotted points by Lūcija F I G .…”

The Final Palaeolithic in the coastal part of Lithuania with the technological emphasis on Aukštumala Stone Age sites

“…however, the technology of the swiderians has been examined in recent years, paying much more attention to the methods of core preparation and their exploitation, as well as blade morphology (e.g. Berg-hansen et al 2019b;grużdź 2018;Pyżewicz et al 2019;gudaitienė 2020). During the fieldwork at the Aukštumala sites in 2018 and 2019, only one flint core was found which was completely exhausted.…”