Burials in the territory of the Vilnius Kalnų (Hill) Park

The article deals with what publicist discourse on the late-20th century has to say about soldiers of Russian origin and the extent to which the formation and assessment of this concept has been affected by the historical, political, and ideological context. Material for this study was gathered in the Corpus of the contemporary Lithuanian language: a total of about 400 sentences that mention Russian soldiers. The aim of the article is to analyse the most typical attributes of the concept of RUSSIAN SOLDIER and the potential cognitive definition of the Russian soldier in reliance on the late-20th century publicist discourse. Scientific novelty. Scholars have not yet been drawn to study the image of the Russian soldier in the Lithuanian language and it‘s worldviews; therefore, it is meaningful to formulate the concept of the RUSSIAN SOLDIER on the basis of the analysis of opinion journalism texts; it is interesting to see how Lithuanian consciousness perceives the Russian soldier today. A semantic analysis has clearly revealed that the Russian soldier carries a strong emotional charge in nearly all of the sentences selected for the study and has a negative connotation in publicist texts as often as not. In conclusion, the following cognitive definition is formulated: the Russian soldier is fierce, cruel, impolite, a lout who has no understanding of the traditional Lithuanian values, often ravaging them barbarically. He has no mercy for his enemies and the civilian residents of the lands he has invaded alike, gunning them down, torturing and raping them; he is often a marauder and a drunk, swapping different things, weapons and such for vodka only to become even more brutal when drunk. He has no respect for the living or the dead and feels he is the true master of the occupied lands. So, for all practical purposes, between the 17th century and the late 20th century the image of the Russian soldier had been encoded with negative information. This can be said of both personal recollections and collective memory alike. It should nevertheless be noted that such an image of the Russian soldier is prompted by the texts of opinion journalism of the late 20th century only. The analysis of the opinion journalism of the 1940s–1970s would bring up an absolutely different definition of the Russian soldier, because the evaluation and image of this figure in peopleʼs consciousness is highly dependent on the political and historical context.

In this article the outcomes of historical, archaeological, spatial and anthropological research concerning material remnants of the war cemeteries left by the Great War in Central Poland, in the area of Rawka and Bzura are presented. On the example of one of the four communes (Nowa Sucha) subjected to research under the project Archaeological Revival of Memory of the Great War (ARM), the processes of creation, transformation, decay, destruction and re-making present the resting places of the soldiers fallen between December 1914 and July 1915 are shown. In the first part, we sketch the output atmosphere that accompanied the primary context in which war cemeteries were established and place the war cemeteries in the network of social, formal and legal determinants. In the second part, we frame the historical and social contexts in which the resting places of the fallen soldiers of the German and Russian armies were massively created. Than, we show the difficulties associated with locating particular war cemeteries and signal strengths and obstacles in correlating results of archival research and use of remote sensing and archaeological methods in order to restore the memory of war cemeteries and establish their current and future condition as material warnings. Also we stress the looping of cultural and natural factors both in the process of protecting and destroying material condition of war cemeteries. Finally, on the example of one of the cemeteries we show how slow and arduous but at the same time promising can be the process of transformation from a forgotten/plowed cemetery into a place of/in memory, and as an agent struggling with the continuous nature-cultural transformations.

This article presents the results of multidisciplinary research undertaken in 2016–2019 at the German Nazi Treblinka I Forced Labour Camp. Housing 20,000 prisoners, Treblinka I was established in 1941 as a part of a network of objects such as forced labour camps, resettlement camps and prison camps that were established in the territory of occupied Poland from September 1939. This paper describes archaeological research conducted in particular on the execution site and burial site—the area where the “death pits” have been found—in the so-called Las Maliszewski (Maliszewa Forest). In this area (poorly documented) exhumation work was conducted only until 1947, so the location of these graves is only approximately known. The research was resumed at the beginning of the 21st century using, e.g., non-invasive methods and remote-sensing data. The leading aim of this article is to describe the comprehensive research strategy, with a particular stress on non-invasive geophysical surveys. The integrated archaeological research presented in this paper includes an analysis of archive materials (aerial photos, witness accounts, maps, plans, and sketches), contemporary data resources (orthophotomaps, airborne laser scanning-ALS data), field work (verification of potential objects, ground penetrating radar-GPR surveys, excavations), and the integration, analysis and interpretation of all these datasets using a GIS platform. The results of the presented study included the identification of the burial zone within the Maliszewa Forest area, including six previously unknown graves, creation of a new database, and expansion of the Historical-GIS-Treblinka. Obtained results indicate that the integration and analyses within the GIS environment of various types of remote-sensing data and geophysical measurements significantly contribute to archaeological research and increase the chances to discover previously unknown “graves” from the time when the labour camp Treblinka I functioned.

[full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English]
 In 2016, exploratory archaeological research was conducted in the environs of the remains of the Vilnius Upper Castle Palace, which has been also known as the Grand Ducal Palace. The purpose of the current article was to present the results of the archaeological research conducted in 2016, the analysis of which allows for a closer look at the chronology of a wooden castle building on the Gediminas Hill. This article briefly covers the previous archaeological investigations of the Gediminas Hill. Also, the prior archaeological studies related to the early inhabiting of the Hill by people are analyzed; the chronological circumstances of a wooden castle’s emergence on the Hill based on archaeological data are overviewed as well. The archaeological research of 2016 did not result in a great quantity of finds, yet the radiocarbon dating of samples was quite large in number. The present article is aiming at the publication of results of the laboratory dating of samples that was conducted in 2016 as well as at encouraging the further academic discussion on the topic of the occurrence of a wooden castle on the Gediminas Hill, based on the possibilities provided by the statistical modelling of these results.

This study bridges a gap between palaeopathology and the textual analysis, with the aim of investigating whichdiseases and pathological lesions could have been associated with disability in Early Mediaeval Culmen in Poland.We used palaeopathological methods to examine 661 skeletons, as well as reviewed Early Mediaeval hagiographiesand chronicles. The textual analysis revealed three types of disability: mobility difficulties, an abnormal posture, and blindness, which were also identified in the osteological materials from Culmen. Eight skeletons display lesions corresponding to Pott’s disease, poliomyelitis, leprosy, osteomyelitis, multiple myeloma, and amputation, which were identified as disabilities. The prevalence of disability depended on the age, with adults affected more frequently. This interdisciplinary study is the first to analyse people with disabilities on a population level, using textual sources and osteological materials from mediaeval Central Europe. The protocol forresearch on disability in archaeology presented by us may be applied to other archaeological contexts, also from sites outside Poland, from historical periods of time.

Introduction to Special issue

Bronzealderens keramik – En kilde til forståelse af kommunikation og social interaktion i bronzealderen

In this paper, we propose a methodology to collaborate the research using agent simulation and the research using conventional method (field research) in archaeology. The main stream researches using Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) are unidirectional cooperation with the results of field research as input and the results of simulation research as output. In our proposed method, by presenting the hypothesis verification method from ABS result, the simulation result can become the input of field research. As an application example of proposed method, we discuss the problem of whether native Jomon people or Chinese-Korean immigrants played the major role of agricultural culture in Yayoi period by ABS.

In her 1993 book, ‘What This Awl Means’, Jane Spector examined the relationship between gender, objects, environment and archaeology through a female personal narrative. While such historical storytelling has been viewed as unconventional, it is effective as it paints a vibrant picture communicating context, significance and insight into what might otherwise be viewed in traditional archaeological description as a simple, utilitarian tool. However, to do this effectively, sufficient cultural competence and symbolic understanding must be woven with archaeological research, anthropological interpretation and understanding of the cultural and historical context through the lens of storytelling. This paper explores this approach by presenting the complex symbolic and agroeconomic relationships maintained with the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) and the linden tree (Tilia sp.) by ancient peoples in Central Europe. The story draws on a body of archaeological, botanical and chemical research, Slovak cultural and linguistic background, as well as ancestral oral history.

The publication for the first time introduces into scientific circulation the historical sources identified in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), which reveal the circumstances of cooperation and dismissal of journalist and writer Nina Iosifovna Frank (1891-1949) from the editorial office of the central anti-Bolshevik daily military newspaper “Russian Army”, published in Omsk from November 1918 to November 1919. It is about the statement of N. I. Frank to the responsible editor of the newspaper, Lieutenant Colonel Y. S. Gerken, and two reports of the editor to Colonel G. I. Klerzhe, Assistant Chief of the General Staff of the Military Ministry of the Russian government. The documents are dated April 1919, but they refer to the events of February 1919. The introduction to the documentary publication substantiates the relevance of the selected topic, describes the historiographical conflict and characterizes the historical context necessary for an adequate understanding of the essence and scientific significance of the published materials. It is shown that N. I. Frank was an energetic and emotional personality, striving for social and political influence and high social position. The information that appeared in memoirs, diary entries and obituary, and later in historiography that the journalist was allegedly the editor of the official military newspaper “Russian Army” turned out to be unreliable, but had some basis in reality. The published documents report about N. I. Frank's work as a freelance assistant to the editor of the “Russian Army”, who had access to internal office documentation, and her dismissal in February 1919 by order of Major-General N. A. Stepanov, the military minister of the Russian government, who believed that only servicemen and in no case women should work in the editorial office of the “Russian Army”. The published documents help to get an idea of the personal relations within the editorial staff of the newspaper “Russian Army” in the spring of 1919 and the everyday difficulties of the refugee employees who were forced to live in the premises of the editorial office. The documents make clear the subordination, military style of work and decision-making procedures in the newspaper “Russian Army”. The fact of a woman's collaboration in an anti-Bolshevik military newspaper and her subsequent dismissal suggest that under the conditions of the Civil War, the counterrevolutionary camp was undergoing a tacit reduction of women's gender roles, which had been expanded as a result of the revolutionary processes of 1917.

<i>The Archaeology of Forts and Battlefields</i>, by David R. Starbuck and <i>The Archaeology of French and Indian War Frontier Forts</i>, by Lawrence E. Babits and Stephanie Gandulla, eds.

This paper introduces statistical shape modelling (SSM) for use in osteoarchaeology research. SSM is a full field, multi-material analytical technique, and is presented as a supplementary geometric morphometric (GM) tool. Lower mandibular canines from two archaeological populations and one modern population were sampled, digitised using micro-CT, aligned, registered to a baseline and statistically modelled using principal component analysis (PCA). Sample material properties were incorporated as a binary enamel/dentin parameter. Results were assessed qualitatively and quantitatively using anatomical landmarks. Finally, the technique’s application was demonstrated for inter-sample comparison through analysis of the principal component (PC) weights. It was found that SSM could provide high detail qualitative and quantitative insight with respect to archaeological inter- and intra-sample variability. This technique has value for archaeological, biomechanical and forensic applications including identification, finite element analysis (FEA) and reconstruction from partial datasets.

Contemporary bioarchaeological research has the potential to reinforce Westernized stereotypes of gender, positionality, social roles, and interpretations of specific events—inadvertently changing our understandings of these events. The collapse of available social information in the archaeological and bioarchaeological contexts reduces the visibility of multiple complex relationships, where a person might have numerous social experiences reduced into a singular context. There are many established critiques of issues of representation and equifinality in archaeological research; however, with the use of modern warfare (and violence) terminologies, Westernized notions and concepts are again shaping the discourse. Limits in the data available for interpretation may cause us to only consider some types of events (e.g., feuds, raids, battles, war, genocide, sacrifice) based on interpretations of scale, scope, and mode of death which are necessarily shaped by modern understandings and might collapse the intersections between these categories, producing a new narrative for the event. Using this frame also shapes who we would expect to see involved directly versus indirectly in these warring behaviors and therefore might also guide attempts at engendering interpretations by causing some of the contributions to these events to be overlooked. Data from bioarchaeological, classic ethnographic texts, and historical contexts are included in this discussion.

This paper presents some of the preliminary results of non-invasive and invasive archaeological research on the terrain of a former German Nazi labour and concentration camp in P?aszów, a suburb of Kraków. The starting point is a reference to Schindler’s List – a film that is partially about the camp (KL Plaszow in German) and which created a certain social picture of it. This paper discusses the history of archaeological research relating to Holocaust landscapes in Poland, and sketches the historical context related to the opening, functioning, closing and later reusing of the campscape. The last section provides a glimpse into the archaeological field research and its results. The main thesis of this paper is that the history of World War II, including the Holocaust, is transforming in front of our eyes into archaeology. The paper shows how archaeology can play an active and crucial role in discovering, documenting and interpreting material remains related to the Holocaust and its manifold consequences.

Recent excavations at Comacchio as well as archaeological research in the Venetian lagoon are defining the northern Adriatic region as an especially dynamic area in demographic rather than economic terms during the early Middle Ages. This dynamism is best expressed in the form of new centres of settlement with specific characteristics, principally associated with short- and long-distance trade. This phenomenon possesses a strong resemblance to the emergence of similar places along the North Sea coastline from more or less the same period. This phenomenon has been much debated by historians and archaeologists, who have ascribed the source of these new specialized centres (defined as emporia or wics) as prototypes for future mercantile cities and the rebirth of the medieval economy. The scope of the congress at Comacchio was to evaluate the most recent evidence, in a historical and archaeological context, addressingthe importance of these new Adriatic centres as well as considering comparisons for the first time with the more familiar northern European trading centres.