Simple engravings or something more? Decoration and decorated hunter-gatherer osseous tools in the eastern Baltic

The eastern part of the Baltic region was settled at the end of the Last Ice Age. The hunting communities that arrived here adapted to the natural environment and resources. During the Holoceneperiod, as the natural environment changed and natural resources became more abundant, people's way of life changed and the technologies used to make tools also evolved. At the same time, theworldview of communiti es also evolved, which is usually conveyed in the archaeological record through ornamentati on, and images of people and animals – the so-called mobile art of prehistory. Inthe eastern Baltic region, a number of such objects dati ng from the Final Palaeolithic to the end of the Neolithic are known, especially human and animal figures dating to the Neolithic. Anothercategory that has so far been little studied in the study area is the geometric moti ves on artefacts made from animal bones and antlers. In the Lithuanian territory, geometric ornaments on osseousartefacts have been known since the end of the Last Ice Age (c. 10 300 BC), but the greatest number of decorations can be seen at the end of the Mesolithic (c. 6500-5000 BC) and in the Neolithic (c.5000-2000 BC). In 2021-2024, as part of the research project "Stone Age osseous artefacts from western Lithuania: technology and chronology" (PI-Adomas Butrimas, funded by the ResearchCouncil of Lithuania), part of the artefacts studied were ornamented. However, the project did not aim at detailed studies of ornamentati on and decorated artefacts. For that, another project was needed. Therefore, the idea of the present research project followed from that.

This project aims to analyse, using modern research methods, the ornamented types of osseous artefacts dati ng back to the Final Palaeolithic–Neolithic found in the territory of Lithuania, as well asthe ornamentati on itself. The methodological approach of the research would be through the use of modern archaeological laboratory research methods - radiocarbon dating (AMS 14 C), the use ofthe microscope to reconstruct the sequence of producti on stages of the artefact and the ornament; the 3D scanning technologies by adapting the scanned images to the morphological studies of the object; and the identi fi cati on of the animal species using the ZooMS. Ornamented osseous artefacts can contribute to a better understanding of the symbolic world of hunter-gatherers, the needto decorate specific tools and the signifi cance of parti cular ornaments. The methodology applied in this project would also allow a bett er understanding of the chronologies of the specific types ofartefacts and of the ornament itself.

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-PD-24-46.