Papers by Tomas Rimkus
Eesti Arheoloogia Ajakiri/Eesti Arheoloogiaajakiri, 2024
Daktariškė 5 is a huntergatherer site with organic preservation in western Lithuania. It is locat... more Daktariškė 5 is a huntergatherer site with organic preservation in western Lithuania. It is located on a former island of Lake Biržulis, where most finds were obtained in the lacustrine environment. The excavations revealed various osseous tools, such as axes and adzes, projectile points, barbed points, gouges and chisels, dating from the 6th to the 3rd millennium cal BC. Despite the abundance of finds in the vicinity of Lake Biržulis, including those at the Daktariškė 5 site, many remain unexplored in terms of presenting their typological diversity, technology and direct AMS 14 C dating. In this paper, we focus on a single case and present a study of a fully preserved socketed toggle harpoon head manufactured from antler. We provide the latest data on its technological assessments, direct AMS 14 C dating, species identification by ZooMS, and archaeological and ethnographic parallels. The latter suggest that such type of implement in northern latitudes was designed for hunting large aquatic mammals. Archaeozoological evidence of large freshwater fish, beavers and otters from Lake Biržulis suggests that this tool could have been adapted to the local environment. Consequently, we discuss the origin and possible use of the toggle harpoon head in the Lake Biržulis environment. K E Y W O R D S toggle harpoon head, antler technology, AMS 14 C dating, ZooMS analysis, Lake Biržulis.
Archaeologia BALTICA
The elk staff is a characteristic Stone Age artefact from the Baltic region. The most elegant spe... more The elk staff is a characteristic Stone Age artefact from the Baltic region. The most elegant specimens have been found in the Olenij Ostrov burial site and various Stone Age sites in Šventoji. In 2016, the use-wear of artefacts found in the Stone Age sites of Šventoji was studied microscopically under a magnification factor of 690. The research effort also resulted in the successful dating of one of the staves found at the third archaeological site of Šventoji. The article presents the results and findings of the study, supplementing what is already known about the artefacts.
CLIOARCH is an ERC Consolidator Grant project and has received funding from the European Research... more CLIOARCH is an ERC Consolidator Grant project and has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 817564).
In search of Lithuania coastal Mesolithic : review of current data and the aims of an ongoing research project
Fornvännen, 2019
This paper presents the latest data on the Mesolithic settlements in the Baltic Seacoast area of ... more This paper presents the latest data on the Mesolithic settlements in the Baltic Seacoast area of Lithuania. For thousands of years changing natural conditions and thedevelopment of the Baltic Sea h ...
Archaeologia Baltica, 2021
In the context of archaeometallurgical studies of copper alloys, it is relevant to record the ess... more 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.
Mesolithic AMS 14C Evidence on Microlithic and Pressure Blade Technology in the Lakeland of Eastern Lithuania
Lithic Technology
Archaeologia Baltica, 2019
This paper presents the latest data on a spindle-shaped decorated bone dagger, which was found as... more This paper presents the latest data on a spindle-shaped decorated bone dagger, which was found as a stray find in the village of Šarnelė in northwest Lithuania, and which recently been dated to the Final Palaeolithic. It is currently the only one such example of osseous technology in Lithuania dated to this period. In 2016, we started to reinvestigate the Stone Age material from the Samogitian highland by AMS radiocarbon (14C) dating, stable isotopes, use-wear and Raman methods. AMS dating showed that the decorated dagger discovered in the surroundings of the drained Lake Ertenis and the River Varduva at Šarnelė currently is one of the oldest prehistoric art objects found in Lithuania and possibly in the eastern Baltic region as well. The dagger was also analysed by use-wear method, which helped to identify some stages of the production of the article itself and its decoration. The paper presents the first results of research of this artefact in the wider geographical and taxonomic context of the Final Palaeolithic in northern Europe.
M. Iršėnas, A.Butrimas, T. Rimkus, G. Slah “The Elks of Šventoji: Taking another closer look”, in: Archaeologia Baltica 25, 2018, p. 125-139, ISSN: 2351-6534, 2018
The elk staff is a characteristic Stone Age artefact from the Baltic region. The most elegant spe... more The elk staff is a characteristic Stone Age artefact from the Baltic region. The most elegant specimens have been found in the Olenij Ostrov burial site and various Stone Age sites in Šventoji. In 2016, the use-wear of artefacts found in the Stone Age sites of Šventoji was studied microscopically under a magnification factor of 690. The research effort also resulted in the successful dating of one of the staves found at the third archaeological site of Šventoji. The article presents the results and findings of the study, supplementing what is already known about the artefacts.
Some of the research on the geometric microliths from Lithuania, which resembles wider technologi... more Some of the research on the geometric microliths from Lithuania, which resembles wider technological process in the Mesolitich of northern Europe.
Abstract. The article sets out to discuss the distribution, typology and chronology of Lyngby typ... more Abstract. The article sets out to discuss the distribution, typology and chronology of Lyngby type horn artefacts discovered in Northern Europe and the Eastern Baltic region for the first time in the Lithuanian scientific archaeological literature. Based on radiocarbon dating, the article makes a conclusion that the tools in question were used in the Eastern Baltic region both after the Last Glacial Period and before the Last Glacial Maximum. According to the latest research findings, two artefacts (Šnaukštai, Klaipėda district; Kalnėnai, Jurbarkas district) which were found on the Lithuanian territory are for the time being the only human-made artefacts dating to the period before the Late Nemunas Glacial Maximum, which were discovered in Lithuania and Northern Europe. According to radiological imaging, these finds were used both in the
An axe of Lyngby type made of antler of male adult reindeer was recovered in 2014 in the Parupė s... more An axe of Lyngby type made of antler of male adult reindeer was recovered in 2014 in the Parupė settlement of Biržai District, northern Lithuania. Archaeological investigations were carried out at the Lateglacial (Allerød) site near the Mūša–Nemunėlis Basin during which the stratigraphic context of the find was established. Pollen analysis, loss-on-ignition (LOI), magnetic susceptibility, and grain-size measurements were applied in case of accommodating layers. It was determined that reindeer hunters made the Parupė axe in the Late Allerød, which is confirmed by the radiocarbon dating: 11145 to 11045 cal. BC. This is the first find of this kind uncovered in the territory of Lithuania. The artefacts of Lyngby type recovered in Lithuania and in the Baltic area are typologically, technologically, and chronologically identical and coeval with the artefacts discovered in SouthWest Europe. The use-wear analysis of the Lithuanian artefact allowed identifying its function and manufacturing technology. This tool was used for felling trees. Analysis of stable carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) isotopes of the uncovered antler axe produced values similar to those obtained of the antlers of all reindeer inhabiting the East Baltic area at that time.
Žvalgymų metu Barstytalių, Geldėnų ir Kruopių kaimuose metalo ieškikliais išžvalgyta 16 įvairaus ... more Žvalgymų metu Barstytalių, Geldėnų ir Kruopių kaimuose metalo ieškikliais išžvalgyta 16 įvairaus dydžio plotų (iš viso apie 4300 m 2 ), aptiktas vienas archeologinis objektas -Geldėnų kapinynas, surinkti ir ŽMA perduoti 64 archeo loginiai radiniai ir 2 XIX a. pabaigos -XX a. I pusės monetos (iš viso 66 radiniai). Iki 2014 m. šioje Barstyčių seniūnijos dalyje ir aplinkiniuose kaimuose sisteminga archeologinių objektų paieška nevyko, todėl panašaus pobūdžio žval gomąsias ekspedicijas planuojama tęsti.
Conference Presentations by Tomas Rimkus
Towards a collaborative meta-analysis of the Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic in Europe. Report on the 2nd CLIOARCH Workshop, 26th-27th November 2020, 2021
We report on a virtual workshop aimed at advancing a new synthesis of techno-cultural patterns at... more We report on a virtual workshop aimed at advancing a new synthesis of techno-cultural patterns at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary in Europe. We respond to the growing need of developing meta-analytical frameworks for comparing and eventually integrating disparate regional datasets and stress the opportunities of collaborative approaches. We propose that expert-sourced lithic data is a promising means of conducting systematic archaeological meta-analyses, and that the compilation and examination of similar continental-scale datasets may be an important research goal in the future.
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Papers by Tomas Rimkus
Conference Presentations by Tomas Rimkus