Two burials in a unique freshwater shell midden: insights into transformations of Stone Age hunter-fisher daily life in Latvia

Brinker, Ute; Bērziņš, Valdis; Ceriņa, Aija; Gerhards, Guntis; Kalniņš, Mārcis; Krause‐Kyora, Ben; Lübke, Harald; Meadows, John; Meinel, Dietmar; Ritchie, Kenneth; Rudzīte, Mudīte; Tõrv, Mari; Zagorska, Ilga; Schmölcke, Ulrich

doi:10.1007/s12520-020-01049-7

Cited by 15 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Absolute chronology is one of the challenges that Latvian burial archaeology faces. The only adequately dated sites are Zvejnieki (Zagorska & Larsson, 1994;Eriksson et al, 2003;Larsson, 2010;Zagorska et al, 2018) and Riņņukalns (Berziņš et al, 2014;Lübke et al, 2016;Brinker et al, 2020). The former site spans an exceptionally long period, between the late eighth and third millennium BC (and beyond), and the latter dates to the later fourth millennium BC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A new phase of burial archaeology started in the 2000s through an international research collaboration, with a Latvian-Swedish project that investigated further burials at the Zvejnieki cemetery between 2005 and 2009 (Larsson, 2010;Nilsson Stutz et al, 2013;Larsson et al, 2017). New finds of human remains were also made by the Latvian-German cooperative project at the Riņņukalns site in 2011-2018 (Berziņš et al, 2014;Lübke et al, 2016;Brinker et al, 2020).…”

Section: A Brief History Of Latvian Stone Age Burial Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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More Than Just Zvejnieki: An Overview of Latvian Stone Age Burials

Macāne

Nordqvist

2021

Eur. j. archaeol

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The well-known Zvejnieki cemetery, with 330 burials, is one of the largest hunter-gatherer cemeteries in northern Europe, overshadowing the more than 115 other Stone Age burials from over ten sites in Latvia. This article is a first overview of these other burials, summarizing their research history, characteristics, and assemblages. The authors discuss the problematic chronology of Latvian Stone Age burials and place them in a wider regional context. Most of the burials are hunter-gatherer burials, and a few are Corded Ware graves. This overview broadens our understanding of Latvian Stone Age burials and brings to light the diversity of hunter-fisher-gatherer mortuary practices in the eastern Baltic region.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Brief History Of Latvian Stone Age Burial Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

More Than Just Zvejnieki: An Overview of Latvian Stone Age Burials

Macāne

Nordqvist

2021

Eur. j. archaeol

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“…Riņņukalns in north Latvia is a large freshwater shell midden and burial complex along the bank of the river Salaca, near Lake Burtnieks (Brinker et al 2020). The first excavations took place in the early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Bērziņš et al 2014).…”

Section: Sites and Soil Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The head was facing in the opposite direction of the legs. The head region of the deceased was full of fish bones, interpreted as a food offering for the deceased (Brinker et al 2020). The grave has been dated to circa 3500-3000 cal BC (Brinker et al 2020).…”

Section: Sites and Soil Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracing the Materiality of Feathers in Stone Age North-Eastern Europe

Mannermaa¹,

Kirkinen

2020

CSA

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The use of feathers in ritual costumes and everyday clothing is well described in ethnographic sources throughout the world. From the same sources we know that bird wings and feathers were loaded with meaning in traditional societies worldwide. However, direct archaeological evidence of prehistoric use of feathers is still extremely scarce. Hence, feathers belong to the ‘missing majority’: items that are absent from the archaeological record but which we can assume to have been of importance. Here we present microscopic analysis of soil samples from hunter-gatherer burial contexts which reveal the first direct evidence of the use of feathers in the Mesolithic period of north-eastern Europe.

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“…They were subsequently continued by other German scholars in the second half of the 19 th c. and in early 20 th c. Because Nida as well as a portion of present-day western Lithuania were part of the Kingdom of Prussia until the end of the First World War, both the archaeological excavations and the analyses of plant and faunal remains discovered there were conducted by German scientists. The first studies of animal bones in other East Baltic countries -Estonia and Latvia -were also carried out by German researchers (Lõugas, Rannamäe, 2020;Brinker et al, 2020;Bērziņš et al, 2014). The first results of the analyses of faunal remains from Nida were published in 1895; according to them not only the bones of wild but also of domestic animals as well as of freshwater fish were found and analysed (Hollack, 1895).…”

Section: The Review Of Zooarchaeological Research In Lithuaniamentioning

confidence: 99%

Zooarchaeology in Lithuania

Piličiauskienė

Micelicaitė

2020

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In recent years Lithuanian archaeologists have become greatly more aware of and interested in the information provided by faunal remains. Its potential has begun to draw the attention of researchers from nature sciences, while the archaeologists working in the field collect faunal remains uncovered during excavations and hand them over for storage increasingly more often. These faunal remains continue to be stored in the repository at Vilnius University. The project carried out in 2018–2020 with the funds provided by the Research Council of Lithuania gave an opportunity to record and make public the information about the zooarchaeological finds stored in the repository of Vilnius University, which are accessible for researchers and students from various scientific fields. The aims of this article are to present the Lithuanian collection of faunal remains kept at Vilnius University, to review the history of zooarchaeological research as well as the studies carried out in the last few years and to discuss the associated problems that continue to emerge.

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Two burials in a unique freshwater shell midden: insights into transformations of Stone Age hunter-fisher daily life in Latvia

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

More Than Just Zvejnieki: An Overview of Latvian Stone Age Burials

More Than Just Zvejnieki: An Overview of Latvian Stone Age Burials

Tracing the Materiality of Feathers in Stone Age North-Eastern Europe

Zooarchaeology in Lithuania

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