Economic Archaeology – the Way to Understand the Evolution of Once-living People

Although various aspects of the social processes and traditions, chronology and typology of the artefacts have been studied for years, the results are usually not entered into a broader context or correlated with thematically detailed research. For a long time in the Eastern Baltic region‘s archaeological science, the start of the economic processes was directly associated with the spread of agriculture (neolithisation). This has led to a biased interpretation of the long-term developments and to overlook other changes in society prior to the advent of the Neolithic. However, prior to this seminal event in human evolution, human groups in the region already had permanent settlements, large communities, and well developed and complex social systems. Until recently, research which postulated ideas and theories about the Eastern Baltic Region hunter-gatherer communities as small and primitive, are being challenged. Based on many years of archaeological studies there is little doubt that some economic systems existed prior to the transition.The purpose of this paper is to present results and discuss how scientific theory of the economy enables us to answer questions related to the daily life activities of the prehistoric communities: how did prehistoric communities cope with their quest to meet their economic and production requirements? What type and how many resources were needed for communities to exist? What means did they use to ensure their survival and how did they exploit those means? All of the above is reviewed with the understanding that all prehistoric economic and social processes are inseparable from the inter-regional social, cultural and economic context, i. e. a broader territorial context encompassing the Eastern part of the Baltic Sea Region.

Author: PhD student Zilinskaite, Agne - Vilnius University (Presenting author)