The Large-Scale Rescue Excavation of a Multi-Period Site at Kvietiniai Sheds Light on the so far Little Explored Bronze Age in Western Lithuania

In 2020, rescue excavations due to construction of a pipeline connecting Poland and Lithuania took place at the Bronze Age sites Tarbiškės 1 and Tarbiškės 2, eastern Lithuania, both dated to 1050–900 cal BC. They revealed a rather homogeneous archaeological assemblage which fills a gap in the development of the Bronze Age culture and economy in the southeastern Baltic. Tarbiškės Ware, from a typological as well as chronological point of view, stands in an intermediate position linking Trzciniec culture pottery with Žalioji and Early Striated Wares. Macrobotanical analysis of charred plant remains revealed that Bronze Age people at Tarbiškės cultivated Panicum miliaceum, Hordeum vulgare and Triticum sp. The Tarbiškės sites demonstrate that early farmers used to settle areas at higher elevations with sandy soils, further from large bodies of water. They used flint and other stone tools widely and lacked bronze. Tarbiškės is the first and only ancient settlement discovered in Lithuania with a workshop for on-site manufacturing of polished stone axes with drilled holes.

Section: Pott E R Ymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a better understanding of the economy and culture of the Late Bronze Age in the southeastern Baltic: Tarbiškės settlements

Vengalis¹,

Minkevičius²,

Skridlaitė³

et al. 2022

“…Here, such pottery can be found both in settlement and burial sites. Several available dates (Piličiauskas 2012;Minkevičius et al 2020;Vengalis et al 2020a) indicate that here pottery with a coarse slipped surface began to spread earlier than the Kakliniškės Ware in southeastern Lithuania. The differences between the coarse slipped pottery of this region and the Kakliniškės Ware are the predominance of thickwalled vessels and the greater variety of their forms.…”

Section: S E Tt L E M E Nt P Att E R N a N D S U B S I S T E N C Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Hidden landscapes of the Earliest Iron Age: Excavations at Kakliniškės 7 reveal an overlooked settlement phase in southern Lithuania

Minkevičius¹,

Valančius²,

Vengalis³

2022

The article presents the data from Kakliniškės 7 settlement site, discovered and excavated in 2020 during the construction of the gas pipeline. The rich and representative collection of pottery and archaeobotanical material gathered in the site have provided valuable data on the hitherto unknown 4th century BC in Lithuania. Pottery such as that found at Kakliniškės 7 has not previously been identified, and is therefore referred to here as Kakliniškės Ware. These are pots with slightly curved walls, rounded shoulders and vertical rims, featuring a striated surface topped with an additional coarse layer. The defined attributes of this new type of pottery have allowed the identification of the same ware in other settlement and burial sites in southeastern Lithuania and the Trans-Nemunas region. All of these settlement sites share some common features; most likely they are the sites of short-lived farmsteads belonging to highly dispersed settlements. Such data allow us to hypothesise a hitherto unidentified cultural group that briefly spread in southern Lithuania in the 4th century BC. This challenges the prevailing model of a static cultural development and a homogeneous material culture in the 1st millennium BC in all of eastern Lithuania. Our data show that the cultural situation here was much more dynamic than previously thought.

“…1 and 12). Clearly, there are not enough studied habitation sites excavated using modern methods in this area (Bliujienė et al 2012;Vengalis et al 2020). As a result of the rapid changes of settlement structure in the Early Roman period, new sites are emerging.…”

Section: Major Places and Their Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…1; Appendix). In contrast, in the coastal lowlands of west Lithuania and the Lower Nemunas region, the archaeological material comes mainly from burial sites, although there were undoubtedly livedin hillforts and unfortified settlements (Grigalavičienė 1979;Bliujienė et al 2012;Šiaulinskas 2016;Jovaiša 2020;Minkevičius et al 2020;Vengalis et al 2020;Piličiauskas et al 2021). However, it should be admitted that, in terms of material, chronology and settlement structure, the Earliest Iron Age remains the least-known archaeological period in Lithuania.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Essential changes in the composition of copper alloys reveal technological diversities in the transition from the Earliest Iron Age to the Early Roman period in Lithuania

Bliujienė¹,

Petrauskas²,

Bagdzevičienė³

et al. 2021

In the context of archaeometallurgical studies of copper alloys, it is relevant to record the essential changes in the elemental composition of copper alloys that occur during changes in technology and transitions in human history. This article presents the shift in the elemental composition of copper alloy from bronze-based alloys to brass ones during essential changes in archaeological material which happened at the turn of the Earliest Iron Age (500-1 BC) and the Early Roman period, from the 1st century BC to the middle of the 1st century AD. As early as the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, in the Antique world and the Roman Empire and its provinces, brass was already starting to partly replace bronze. Even if the Earliest Iron Age is the least knowable period in Lithuanian prehistory, the few pieces of jewellery attributed to this period show the changes in the composition of the copper alloy. The territorial growth of the Late Antique world and internal contacts within the Barbaricum led to the expanding strength of commodities, including raw materials, technologies, cultural ideas and ideological attitudes. Goods and ideas spread throughout the vast barbarian lands, and eventually reached the forest zone of northeast Europe. Sudden changes during the Early Roman period were first of all connected with the development of settlement structure, and this has therefore made it possible to identify some major places of the production of artefacts and partly changed directions of exchange. All this was accompanied by the emergence of new jewellery types produced by skilled jewellers according to sophisticated techniques. These changes are clearly visible in Early Roman period Lithuanian archaeological material, including the elemental composition of copper alloys. The present article uses X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry to investigate the composition of copper alloys. Radiography was used to understand the construction of artefacts, and to assess the degree of their inner corrosion and sophisticated manufacturing techniques. Solder samples were taken from the surfaces of several finds, and were analysed by qualitative microchemical analysis.