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

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Abstract

The Stone Age site Riņņukalns, Latvia, is the only well-stratified shell midden in the Eastern Baltic. In this paper, we present new interdisciplinary results concerning its dating, stratigraphy, features, and finds to shed light on the daily life of a fisher population prior to the introduction of domesticated animals. The undisturbed part of the midden consists of alternating layers of unburnt mussel shell, burnt mussel shell and fish bone, containing artefacts, some mammal and bird bones, and human burials. Two of them, an adult man and a baby, are discovered recently and date to the calibration plateau between 3350 and 3100 cal BC, and to the later 4th millennium, respectively. Stable isotopes suggest a diet based heavily on freshwater fish, and this is supported not only by ten thousands of identified fish remains, but also by a fish bone concentration nearby the skull of the man, which is interpreted as remain of a grave gift (possible fish soup). Of special interest are the baby’s stable isotope values. It shows that the mother’s diet was atypical (perhaps because she was non-local), and/or that dietary stress during pregnancy increased fractionation between the mother’s diet and her bloodstream.

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Acknowledgements

The paper presents results of the project ‘Riņņukalns, ein neolithischer Süßwassermuschelhaufen im Norden Lettlands und seine Bedeutung für die steinzeitliche Kulturentwicklung im östlichen Baltikum’ funded by the German Research Council (DFG, project number 335674082), and of the base funding project of the University of Latvia ‘Letonica, diaspora and intercultural communication’ (ZD2015/AZ85). The paper is also part of the research of the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 ‘Scales of Transformation – Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies’ funded by the DFG (project number 2901391021 – SFB1266).

We are grateful to the technical staff of the Leibniz-Laboratory for AMS Dating and Stable Isotope Research (Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany), the radiocarbon laboratory at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels, Belgium, and isolab GmbH, Schweitenkirchen, Germany. Many thanks for great cooperation to Gerhard Stawinoga (Archaeological Museum Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig, Germany), Linda Hermannsen (Archaeological State Agency Schleswig-Holstein, Schleswig), Jörg Nowotny and Karin Göbel (both ZBSA). We also thank the student team from Kiel and Riga who worked on the excavation, and Ekaterina Kashina, Anastasia Khramtsova, Jos Kleijne, Kerkko Nordqvist, Laimdota Kalniņa, Līga Palma and the Zagorskis family for discussions and/or their help in fieldwork.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Schleswig, Germany

    Ute Brinker, Harald Lübke, John Meadows, Kenneth Ritchie & Ulrich Schmölcke

  2. University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

    Valdis Bērziņš, Aija Ceriņa, Guntis Gerhards, Mārcis Kalniņš, Mudīte Rudzīte & Ilga Zagorska

  3. University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Ben Krause-Kyora

  4. Division 8.5 Micro Non-Destructive Testing, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), Berlin, Germany

    Dietmar Meinel

  5. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Mari Tõrv

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Brinker, U., Bērziņš, V., Ceriņa, A. et al. Two burials in a unique freshwater shell midden: insights into transformations of Stone Age hunter-fisher daily life in Latvia. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 12, 97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01049-7

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  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01049-7

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