One of the unique places in Europe in both environmental and cultural terms is the Curonian Spit -a massive sandy barrier separating the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. Straddling both the Lithuanian and the Russian parts, the spit is included into the UNESCO list of cultural heritage monuments. From the geological point of view, it is still an "alive" environment dominated by aeolian deposits. With the help of modern geophysical and geochronological techniques (ground-penetrating radar [GPR] surveys, LIDAR data, and radiocarbon [ 14 C] dating), detailed investigations of paleosols were carried out in the Dead (Grey) Dunes massif located between Juodkrante and Pervalka settlements on the Lithuanian half of the Curonian Spit. Several soil-forming generations (phases) during 5800-4500, 3900-3100, 2600-2400, and from 1900 calendar years BP until the present have been distinguished. GPR surveys enabled a series of paleogeographic reconstructions of the massif for different time intervals of its evolutionary history.

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The economic model of the Lithuanian Late Bronze Age (1100–500 cal BC) has long been based on zooarchaeological collections from unstratified, multi-period settlements, which have provided an unreliable understanding of animal husbandry and the role of fishing and hunting. The opportunity to re-evaluate the previously proposed dietary and subsistence patterns arose after zooarcheological assemblages of Garniai 1 and Mineikiškės fortified settlements, dating only to the Late Bronze Age, were collected in 2016–2017 and 2020–2021. The new analysis revealed that the communities in these sites were mainly engaged in animal husbandry of small ungulates such as pigs, sheep/goats, which differed from western Lithuania and the rest of the Eastern Baltic. Moreover, it has been observed that hunting and fishing significantly declined after the Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 cal BC). Lastly, unusual traits for the Baltic region were identified including exceptionally highly fragmented bones and the consumption of molluscs, which could be attributed to the exploration of additional food sources in times of deprivation.