VIRVELINĖS KERAMIKOS KULTŪRA LIETUVOJE 2800–2400 cal BC
Authors: Piličiauskas Gytis 
Published: April 2019

SUMMARY CORDED WARE CULTURE IN LITHUANIA IN 2800–2400 CAL BC INTRODUCTION This book focuses on the Corded Ware culture (hereinafter referred to as CWC), its technological and typological characteristics, function, and chronology based on the research of ceramics. Corded Ware (hereinafter referred to as CW) was studied in most of the Lithuanian museums as well as in the largest archaeological storage facilities in Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Substantial data were obtained from the excavations of the CWC sites conducted under my supervision from 2013 through 2017. During these excavations, short-term settlements were investigated and stratified archaeological layers were precisely dated through AMS Radiocarbon dating. As a consequence the collected ceramic assemblages within this study and their associated stratigraphy have become the cornerstone for the reconstruction of the pottery sequence in Lithuania. The research and the publishing of the book were funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LIP-011/2016). THE CONCEPTION OF THE CWC BEFORE THE GENETIC DISCOVERIES IN 2015 The CWC characterised communities that used to bury their dead in a crouched position, produced beakers decorated with cord impressions and incisions, short-wave moulded pots, and amphorae, used boat-shaped axes, and frequently placed weapons and ceramics into graves. This set of features has been identified in the areas from the Volga River to France and from Southern Finland to the Carpathians for the period between 2900/2800- 2400/2200 cal BC. For a number of years, the main question about the CWC has been and remains to be: how did the cultural homogeneity emerge in such a large area? The two most extreme theses are the mass migration of people or the internalevolution of the society engaged in intensive interregional contact, while a number of interjacent hypotheses have also been put forth. The term CWC was first used by German scholars in the late 19th century (Gotze 1891). Soon afterwards, it was applied to the origins of Germans and other Indo-European nations, such as the Indo-Germans, while the CWC was believed to have originated in Northern Germany and Scandinavia (Kossinna 1902; 1926/1927). In contrast, another theory was proposed almost simultaneously in Germany and England, which associated the origins of the Indo-Europeans with the eastern European steppes instead of Northern Europe (Wahle 1924; Childe 1926). Childe believed that the present distribution of Indo-Europeans must have been caused by massive migration of people at some time during prehistory, and among the known prehistorical cultures, it was the CWC that best corresponded to the scenario. Wahle and Childe’s ideas received support and had followers in different countries (e.g., Glob 1945; Sulimirski 1956), with Marija Gimbutas being the most well known. She developed the so-called ‘Kurgan hypothesis’ (Gimbutas 1956; 1979), which combined all the archaeological cultures of the Pontic-Caspian steppe into one whole, i.e. ‘the Kurgan culture’. Gimbutas hypothesised that between 3500-2200 cal BC the steppe nomads migrated into Central Europe in waves and en masse, destroying or transforming the local cultures. Warlike and mobile nomads of the steppes brought their language, religion, and social structure to the new lands. Due to their mass migration to Central Europe, the Indo-European Globular Amphora culture (hereinafter referred to as GAC) and CWC formed between the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea. Following Gimbutas, Anthony (1986) analysed in detail the natural, economic, and social preconditions necessary for the steppe nomads in order to migrate. Up until the collapse of the Soviet Union, a cultural-historical approach was predominant in the archaeology of the countries of the Soviet bloc, and archaeological cultures were identified with peoples, tribes, languages, or language groups. The CWC was most frequently seen as a culture of migrating Indo-Europeans (e.g., Lietuvių etnogenezė 1987; Эпоха... 1987; Buchvaldek 1966; 1986; Machnik 1966). The origins of the CWC and the Indo-Europeans were most often looked for in the European steppes, the Yamnaya or the Catacomb cultures (Артеменко 1967; Брюсов, Зимина 1966), or between the Dnieper and the Vistula Rivers (Крайнов 1972). In the free post-war Europe, however, a different approach prevailed to the effect that mass migration did not play a significant role in the prehistory of Europe, and the substantial changes in the material culture and social structure in the 3rd millennium cal BC had resulted from peaceful internal development instead (Malmer 1962; Champion et al. 1984; Shenan 1986; Damm 1991). As the topics of ethnicity and migration patterns were strongly related to political ideology during the First and Second World Wars, they were subsequently mostly avoided in scholarly discussion. The CWC was thought not to mean one tradition, one ideology, one people, one language, or one culture, but a collective of multiple peoples and traditions. Certain common cultural elements in a vast European area in the 3rd millennium cal BC had not developed due to mass migration, but rather due to supra-regional networks (Lang 1998; Furholt 2014; Beckerman 2015). In the CWC area, it was not the similarities in the burial rites and the material culture, but the differences that were emphasised and considered to be more important. The research on the CWC had reached somewhat of an impasse. Based on the same archaeological material, archaeologists managed to draw completely different conclusions. There were no systematic methods, rules, or a general consensus on how to recognise migration patterns through archaeological materials. Few attempts have been made to bridge the gap between historical migrations and the signs of migration in archaeological materials (e.g., Anthony 1990; Burmeister 2000; Klejn 1999). It is most likely that, excluding the advances in genetics, the view of the formation and development of the CWC would have continued to fluctuate back and forth depending on a preconceptions and subjectivity on the development of culture rather than on the archaeological material itself. THE CWC RESEARCH IN LITHUANIA The first conception of the CWC in Lithuanian archaeology did not emerge from the studies of the said culture in Lithuania because they simply did not exist. The initial studies were based on published works of foreign scholars. Puzinas wrote that most scholars tended to assign the CWC to Indo-Europeans and then trace its origins to the Eurasian steppes (Puzinas 1983). The academic supervisor of Puzinas’ studies in Heidelberg University between 1930 through 1934 was Professor Wahle, who traced Indo-Germans to the Eastern European steppes (1924). As stated in the book Features of Lithuanian Archaeology (Kulikauskas et al. 1961), the CWC was brought about by new tribes that subsisted on primitive agriculture and raising livestock. It was then noticed that the CWC settlements further away from the sea did not have a marked archaeological layer and were found not only close to other bodies of water, like the Subneolithic sites, but were also much more widely distributed across the landscape. Rimantienė began systemic excavations of the CWC sites in the 1960s. She wrote (1984) that the CWC had been brought by newcomers from the southwest during the Late Neolithic, yet she emphasised that they were scarce in this initial stage. Despite that, the CWC Indo-Europeanised the local non-Indo-Eeuropean Narva and Nemunas cultures (Rimantienė 1996, 318). Rimantienė started using the name of the Pamariai/Bay Coast/Rzucewo culture (hereinafter referred to as RC) not only in reference to the coastland sites, but also to the mainland ones with cord-impressions decorated ceramics (1984). The ceramics presently called the post-Corded Ware (hereinafter referred to as PCW) and dating back to the late Neolithic or the early Bronze Age (hereinafter referred to as EBA) was also assigned to the CWC. Rimantienė considered the CWC communities to have been animal breeders and farmers (1984). Pupils of Rimantienė, Butrimas and Girininkas, however, held different views on this issue. Butrimas wrote that the CWC people came from the south, and “…substantially changed the entire cultural-ethnic development of the region, and had a decisive influence on the future of the people of the eastern Baltic coast” (Butrimas, Kazakevičius 1985). Girininkas also agreed that the CWC people were newcomers to Lithuania, however, according to him, “the Cord Ware people, having got to an alien natural landscape and environment, simply could not change the economic development of the local people… they had to adapt to the local population and to simply dissolve amongst the locals” (1994). He hypothesised that the Narva culture people were northern Indo-Europeans, and the CWC people, southern ones, and traced Balts (i.e. Lithuanians and Latvians) to the former. The CWC people were thought to have been tradespeople operating between the Subneolithic hunters-gatherers and the Neolithic farmers living further south (Girininkas 2009). By quantifying the CWC potsherds and vessels in the entire East Baltic region, Girininkas tried to prove that the CWC immigrants had been scarce, and therefore had not been able to change either the established economy or the ethnic composition (2002). Brazaitis was the first scholar to state that the origin of the RC was completely unrelated to the CWC (2005). According to him, the RC emerged at the same time as the GAC, and the cord ornament appeared specifically in those cultures and later spread to other ones, including the CWC (Brazaitis 2005, 226). GENETICISTS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CWC PEOPLE The CWC research community was shaken by two seminal genetics papers clearly indicating that the CWC originated in the Eastern European steppes, the Yamnaya culture (Allentoft et al. 2015; Haak et al. 2015). In the 3rd millennium cal BC, a mass migration of the steppe nomads to Central Europe took place that must have dispersed the Indo- European languages and also brought the plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) (Rasmussen et al. 2015). Mostly men migrated (Goldberg et al. 2017). The steppe nomads were taller than the farmers of Central Europe (Mathieson et al. 2015), and they were more lactose-tolerant (Allentoft et al. 2015). More extensive genetic studies involving a larger number of CWC individuals from Eastern Europe (Jones et al. 2016; Mitnik et al. 2017; Saag et al. 2017) confirmed the findings of the first studies. The local Subneolithic hunters-gatherers, however, were not completely pushed out or exterminated: their genetic component was visible in the genome of later populations of the East Baltic region as well as in contemporary ones (Malmstrom et al. 2009; Lazaridis et al. 2014). ARCHAEOLOGISTS ON THE CWC AFTER THE GENETIC DISCOVERIES Lithuanian researchers have so far failed to respond to the findings of the genetic research on the CWC and Yamnaya culture individuals. Kristiansen and co-authors (2017) juxtaposed the implications of the findings from the latest genetic research for archaeology with those of the first use of radiocarbon dating as a method in archaeology duringthe 1940s Kristiansen and co-authors (2017) juxtaposed the implications of the findings of the latest genetic research for the archaeology with those of an invention of radiocarbon dating. The findings of the DNA analysis undermined the conception of the autochtonous origin of the CWC and confirmed that mass migration was indeed a very important factor in the human development. As stated by Heyd (2017), “culture-history and ethnic interpretations are back on the dinner table”. Through the work of geneticists, archaeological cultures were again referred to as social units and historical actors since they represented different sets of genes. Martin Furholt (2016; 2017) defended his thesis and other supporters of the autochtonous origin of the CWC: strictly speaking, they were not against migrations, but were against the “crudeness” of their application in archaeology. He tried to interpret the genetic findings in such a way that, instead of a sharp change in genes and mass migration, they would indicate a one thousand year long gene flow from the steppes due to different types of human mobility (2017). However, the geneticists remained unconvinced by this argument: they clearly repeated once again that the results of the DNA tests were incompatible with the constant flow of genes and could be accounted for merely by the sudden migration of a large group of people (Haak 2017). Since then Furholt has neither developed a new thesis of the origins of the CWC, nor has he revised his former thesis (2014) in order to take the genetic data into consideration. He, however, did express concern for a “long shadow of G. Kossinna and totalitarian ethno-essentialism in archaeology” (2016; 2017) and warned archaeologists to be politically responsible and not to provide a scientific basis for certain contemporary political currents. In other words, Furholt encouraged researchers to introduce self-censorship through the filter of political correctness. Kristiansen and his co-authors (2017) were the first ones who, after the genetic discoveries, proposed an updated model of the Yamnaya-CWC transformation in Europe, which combined the findings of the archaeological, isotopic, and linguistic research and the results of genetic analyses. He acknowledged without reservation that in the 3rd millennium BC mass migration of people from the southeastern European steppes into the forest zone of Central Europe took place, as testified to by genetic research (Allentoft et al. 2015; Haak et al. 2015). In the genome of individuals from the temperate climate zone, the DNA component originating from the Middle East drastically decreased during the Neolithic, while the new component of the Eastern European steppes dramatically increased. This changed occurred suddenly and indicates a massive migration of a large group of people rather than a centuries-long gene flow. From the archaeological viewpoint, the source of the new genetic component was from the Yamnaya culture. It had been spread throughout a vast area of the steppe from the Dniester River to the south of the Urals. The people of the Yamnaya culture used to bury their dead in a crouched position under burial mounds or in pits covered with stones or wood. They subsisted on nomadic herding, raised sheep and horses, drank milk and spun wool. They, however, did not engage in farming at all (Shishlina 2008). They probably lived in lightweight portable tents made of plaited mat or thick felt and their remains occurred in graves. Ceramics were not widespread; round- or flat-based vessels were decorated with simple rows of cord impressions (Мерперт, 1974; Шапошникова и др. 186; Morgunova, Turetskij 2016). In about 3000 cal BC, the climate in the steppes on the northern coastland of the Black Sea became more humid and the productivity of livestock raising increased, which caused a population explosion and an expansion of the Yamnaya people into Bulgaria, Hungary, and Transylvania (Heyd 2012; Gerling et al. 2012). Technological innovations, i.e. a horse and a cart, could have been of special importance for the nomadic people’s migration, as they enabled people to quickly travel long distances (Heyd 2012; Gerling et al. 2012). The CWC burial customs were mostly uniform within the culture and very close to those of the Yamnaya culture. According to Kristiansen, the migration-caused social transformations ought to be more strongly reflected in conservative institutions, such as settlements, households, and burial customs, but not in ceramics (2017). Kristiansen (2017), like Furholt (2014), pointed out that the early CWC graves in Germany, Denmark, and the Kujawy Region in Poland contained no ceramics. He believed that this gap indicated a period of time during which local women knowledgeable about the manufacturing of ceramics joined the CWC communities. Based on the latest linguistic research (Iversen, Kroonen 2017), Kristiansen believed that the Yamnaya and the CWC people spoke an Indo-European language that differed from the Funnel Beaker culture (hereinafter referred to as FBC) people, who were speakers of a non-Indo-European language. This idea was prompted by agriculture-related non-Indo- European loan words found in Indo-European languages that must have been adopted from the European farmers. Kristiansen’s model of the CWC origin is convincing and offers answers to a number of questions; however, he ignored the archaeological data from the eastern CWC wing east of the Baltic Sea and did not explain why people of East Baltic were not buried in barrows, and did not provide an answer to the question of where and how the CW, which vary significantly from the Yamnaya ceramics, had come about. CORDED WARE SITES In previous works (Rimantienė 1984; Grinevičiūtė 2000; Butrimas, Ostrauskienė 2004; Girininkas, 2002), the ceramics decorated with cord impressions and manufactured in the late Neolithic and EBA (2400-1300 cal BC) tended to fall under the umbrella of the CWC together with the true CW. In the present work, the CW means the ceramics contemporaneous with the CWC graves only. In the East Baltic region, the CW was characterised by the grog temper, which allowed the identification of even individual CWC potsherds; thus, a much more representative map of the CW distribution in Lithuania was made (Fig. 1). At present we know of 74 CW sites in Lithuania and about 360 vessels (Table 1). The most important sites will be individually described below. In 2012 and 2017, nine Stone Age sites were discovered in Alksnynė on the Curonian Spit, including seven that contained CW (Alksnynė 1, 3-8). All of the sites were discovered in the middle of the Spit, although 4,500 years ago that had been the coastline of the lagoon (Fig. 2). In Alksnynė 1, merely 5 small potsherds with grog temper in the clay mass, heavily abraded by drifting sands, as well as a stone weight were found. The finds were discovered on the surface, on a ploughed firebreak, while no paleosol was found in the test pits (Piličiauskas 2013). In Alksnynė 3, a paleosol containing fragmented Neolithic artefacts survived. In 2016, ten boreholes were bored, and one 2x2 m test pit and two trenches (32 m2) were excavated. The whole fragment of the paleosol of about 3.5 m in diameter was investigated (Fig. 3, 4; Piličiauskas et al. 2017a). It represented a lens of grey fine sand with humus up to 15 cm thick, in some places dark grey, with charcoal and abundant small fragments of burnt animal bones (Fig. 4). Under it, there were several pits, possibly a fireplace (Feature 1) and a posthole (Feature 2) (Figs. 5-7). Another fireplace was attested by a reddish-brown sand stain about 50 cm in diameter, found underneath the archaeological layer. In the archaeological layer over the spot, the density of burnt bone fragments was very high (Fig. 7). The investigated fragment of the paleosol remained undisturbed, as it was formed in a natural depression or on the site of the sunken floor of a building, with a fireplace in the middle and possibly one large pole at the southwestern edge. Broken vessels were removed outside, however, leftat the very wall of the building, where most of the ceramics were found (Fig. 7). Altogether, 796 fragments of Neolithic ceramics were found (2.2 kg) which belonged to at least 6 vessels. Almost all the ceramics were grog-tempered. We found beakers decorated with incisions and notches, and sherds of pots decorated with nail or finger imprints as well as short-wave moulded pots (Fig. 8). 2,574 (458 g) fragments of burnt animal bones, teeth, and antler were found: they were very small, therefore, only 61 (2.5 %) were identified to the family or species level. The majority of unidentified bone fragments belonged to medium-sized terrestrial mammals, such as pigs, sheep, or goats. 26 fragments belonged to pigs and at least to two specimens, including an over two-year-old adult and a newborn piglet could be more precisely identified. 13 fragments of bones and teeth belonged to cattle, including at least one over two-year-old specimen. Two bone fragments belonged either to sheep or goats. Only one bone fragment belonged to a wild land mammal, i.e. roe deer. Ten bone fragments belonged to seals and to a minimum of two specimens, including an adult and an under one-year-old pup. The remains of a newborn piglet suggests that people lived at the site in spring. The seals also could have been hunted during the spring breeding period. All nine fish bones belonged to freshwater lagoon fish: pike, pikeperch, and bream. Thus, a small bone collection suggested an image of a mixed CWC economy on the coastland: with domestic animals being raised alongside seal hunting and fishing. However, judging by the bones, the contribution of fishing and hunting in Alksnynė 3 was significantly lower than in the RC, e.g., in the settlement of Nida. Merely 9 flint flakes were discovered, including one tiny flake removed from a polished axe or a chisel. Beside flint, 49 pieces (986 g) of other kinds of stone were discovered, mainly sandstone and granite, in pebbles and flakes. 59 amber flakes and unclassified fragments were found (85 g). 160 liters of soil from archaeological layers were flotated, however, no remains of cultivated plants were found. Only fragments of burnt hazelnut (Corylus avellana) shells and fruits of an unidentified species of sorrel (Rumex spp.) could be related to the CWC settlement. The charcoal of soft deciduous trees from features 1 and 2 were dated (Poz-85280: 3905 } 35 BP and Poz-85281: 3955 } 35 BP), as well as two burnt bones from the archaeological layer: a phalanx of cattle (Poz-89745: 4030 } 35 BP) and of an unidentified animal (Poz-49777: 4110 } 35 BP). Most likely the settlement was inhabited somewhere between 2600 and 2400 cal BC. In 2017, just 50 m north of the site of Alksnynė 3, Alksnynė 4 was discovered. Two one-meter-wide trenches were explored, each of 10 m2. A 5 to 15 cm thick paleosol was found, covered with up to 90 cm fine and medium aeolian sand. Trenches and boreholes proved the presence of a paleosol (i.e. archaeological horizon) in an area of about 400 m2. Under it, one posthole was uncovered, 17 cm in diameter and 12 cm deep, filled with sand with small charcoal. Among the finds, ceramics were prevalent. The potsherds belonged to at least four vessels (Fig. 9). Some unburnt animal bones survived, even though very much decayed. Four amber finds were discovered (4.6 g). The ash tree charcoal from the posthole fill was dated to FTMC-17-15: 4046 } 47 BP; 2854-2470 cal BC. In the autumn of 2017 in Alksnynė, when surveying a ploughed firebreak winding between the bicycle patch and the Great Dune Ridge, four new sites were discovered: Alksnynė 5-8 (Fig. 2), some of them with a preserved paleosol. Unfortunately to date they have not been excavated more extensively. The site of Daktariškė 1 is one of the numerous multi-period sites on the coast of Biržulis Lake (Fig. 10). In 1980, an area of 524 m2 was excavated (Butrimas, Ostrauskienė 2004). Some pieces of Subneolithic, Globular Amphora culture(hereinafter referred to as GAC), and CWC ceramics were found. At least eight potsherds belonged to CW (Fig. 11). The site of Daktariškė 5 is located on the southern slope of a hill in the swampy area around Biržulis and Stervas Lakes (Fig. 10, 12, 13). It is the largest CWC site in Lithuania, with waterlogged wood preserved within stratified lacustrine sediments. The site was excavated by Butrimas between 1987 to 1990. The total area of 648 m2 was excavated, in which over 11,000 potsherds, 326 flint finds, a number of bone and horn artefacts, wooden poles, floats, etc., stone net sinkers, and 132 amber artefacts and flakes were found (Butrimas, Ostrauskienė, 2004). Butrimas called the coast of Biržulis Lake “an amber processing centre” of the Stone Age next to the Curonian Spit, Šventoji, and Lubāns Lake in Latvia (2016, 15). Unfortunately, such claims were unjustified, however, as in centres of amber jewellery manufacturing thousands of amber waste flakes were found, as at Lubāns Lake (Loze 2002), the lower reaches of the Vistula (Mazurowski 1983), and in Šventoji (Rimantienė 2005). In 2016, excavations at the Daktariškė 5 site were resumed under my supervision. I expected a small area, explored next to the old trenches by modern field and lab methods, to contribute to a much better understanding of the previous excavation material. Before starting excavations, a high resolution ortophoto was produced by drone, however, no anomalies were observed in the spring vegetation that might have related to archaeological structures. On a 200x140 m hill (2.46 ha), we performed magnetometric survey by fluxgate gradiometer GRAD-601. No archaeological anomalies similar to those at the Iron Age settlements were noticed (Fig. 14). Thirteen weak anomalies, mostly positive, were tested by boreholes and test pits. It turned out that most of them were generated by parts of the land reclamation, agricultural equipment, or by underground drainage ditches. On the sites of magnetic anomalies, only two features of a potential archaeological period were discovered (Fig. 15), however, given the finds in them or in the delimiting layers, one could assume that they belonged to a period later than the CWC. Next to 13 test pits (36 m2) and 19 boreholes, another two trenches were excavated (24 and 24.6 m2) (Fig. 13). They were situated at the littoral zone of an ancient lake. The archaeological layer at the coast was very thin and unstratified, but further our and in a deeper part of the lake, stratified lake and bog sediments were found (Fig. 16, 17). At a depth of 40 to 75 cm in the gyttja, the first finds were discovered: the upper archaeological layer A (Fig. 17), which was 20 to 25 cm thick and dated back to the late Neolithic and the EBA (around 2400-1500 cal BC). In a deeper layer followed gyttja peat (Fig. 17, layer B) containing the late Subneolithic Porous Ware and CW. Under it, gyttja was found again, i.e. layer C (Fig. 17) and had Porous Ware, close to Combed Ware. In the oldest horizon D (gyttja peat), ceramics was scarce. Lacustrine clay without finds was reached at a depth of 1 to 1.5 m. pH measurements of the archaeological layer (Fig. 18) and bone collagen preservation in the bone finds showed that, despite land reclamation, the conditions for the preservation of organic material at the site are still good. Only three vertical poles were found, all of them very thin: 3.5 to 5 cm in diameter. Therefore, on the excavated part of the littoral zone of the lake, no pile-dwelling settlements and no fishing by stationary gear had existed. Numerous small fragments of pine laths were found, however, merely at the bottom of layer B and in layers C and D. In the Subneolithic, they had been intensely used for the production of fishing equipment, however, they stopped being used in the EBA. 895 stone finds were discovered, sunk in the lake, with the prevalence of stones 3 to 9 cm in diameter (50 to 200 g). Those were fishnet sinkers. On some of them, birch bark remains survived: stones were wrapped in birch bark in order to be attached to fishnets. In more shallow places and closer to the former habitation zone, much more flint was found. Out of 121 flint finds, few were retouched, and there were no formal types. Four amber artefacts (a disc, two buttons, and a pendant) and seven flakes were found in a non-stratified ploughed layer; therefore, their chronology could not be precisely identified (Fig. 19). The round buttons and the pendant could typologically belong to the Subneolithic or Neolithic, and the disc with a groove on the ridge to the late Neolithic or the EBA respectively. The only metal find were fragments of some thin ornament (?) made of copper alloy. They were noticed in a non-stratified layer, in non-ploughed sandy peat. The find dated back either to the Neolithic or the EBA. Two cores of drilled stone axes found in the topsoil could also date back to the Neolithic or the EBA (Fig. 20). Stratigraphically and/or typologically, at least 5 pottery complexes could be identified: the early Subneolithic (Fig. 21), the middle Subneolithic (Fig. 22), the late Subneolithic (Fig. 23), CWC (Fig. 24), and PCW (Figs. 25, 26). The CW in Daktariškė was easy to identify due to the grog temper in the clay mass. Only one potsherd of Hybrid Ware (hereinafter referred to as HW) was found in 2016, its clay mass contained shells and its surface was ornamented by cord impressions (Fig. 23:8). Moreover, only one potsherd of the GAC ceramics was found (Fig. 23:9). Much more of the HW and GAC ceramics were found during the excavations in 1987-1990. The PCW of the second half of the Neolithic and the EBA was found in horizon A. It was characterised by simple profiles, barrel-like vessels with straight or slightly S-shaped walls and a brushed surface with a very fragile clay mass due to abundant coarse granite, and finally knot and plait as well as cord impressions (Figs. 25, 26). The ceramics could not be assigned to the Trzciniec culture, as it did not have the forms or ornamentation typical of that culture. In 2016, in Daktariškė 5, 13 bone and antler artefacts and their fragments were found (Fig. 27). They were either Subneolithic from horizon D or stratigraphically non-dated. The axes and adzes were dated by AMS radiocarbon dating back to 4500-4400 cal BC (Fig. 27:4-5), and analogies to them could be found at the Mesolithic sites of Smeltė (5840-5000 cal BC) and Palanga (4400- 3980 cal BC) (Piličiauskas et al. 2015). 244 pieces (2,881 g) of unworked animal osteological material were collected. About 80 % of them were found in a non-stratified layer, which made it impossible to detect the changes in the faunal structure in the Subneolithic through the EBA. Most of the bones belonged to boars, aurochs, elks, red deer, and beavers. Two boar teeth, indicating spring, were found in a non-stratified layer. One molar from the EBA layer belonged to a sheep/goat, and one femur fragment from the same layer undoubtedly belonged to cattle. A goat’s jaw found during previous excavations dated back to 3305 } 35 BP or 1665- 1502 cal BC (Piličiauskas et al. 2017g). Only 16 fish bones were found, and 15 of them were identified. They belonged to at least three pikes (40 to 70 cm long), one pikeperch (45 to 50 cm), one perch (30 to 35 cm), and one bream (45 to 50 cm). Other perch bones, i.e. 12 fish bones and scales, were found in the coprolite, most probably of a dog, found in the Subneolithic layer D. Currently we have 40 radiocarbon dates for the Daktariškė 5 site (Fig. 28). Provided we ignore the date of a bream bone aged by about 1,000 years due to the Biržulis Lake radiocarbon reservoir effect, the medians of the calibrated dates distribute within an interval of approximately 2,850 years, between 4450-1600 cal BC. We have 11 reliable dates from the deepest part of the trench of 2017 or close to it, therefore, they may be arranged in one column. Because of the inversion of some dates, two age-depth models were created. In accordance with the first one (Fig. 29:A), lithological layers with CW should be dated to 3150-2900 cal BC, and in accordance with the second (Fig. 29:B) to 2600-2400 cal BC. It is obvious that the first one does not correspond tothe CWC chronology in Lithuania, therefore, the second one should be considered as correct. The material collected in Daktariškė 5 over all the excavation years makes it the largest CWC site excavated in Lithuania. The potsherds found in it belong to at least 59 vessels (Fig. 30-36). They were, however, not discovered in the habitation area, but in the littoral zone of the lake. The habitation area must have been on the hill on the coast, however, in recent years it has been intensely cultivated, and therefore the ceramics have been preserved very poorly. The sites of Dubičiai 1 and 2 are in the south of Lithuania, near the former lakes of Pelesa and Duba. They were excavated in 1959 and 1962 (Римантене, 1966; Rimantienė 1999). In the non-stratified archaeological layer, finds of very different periods were discovered from the final Paleolithic to the Iron Age. Among the CW of Dubičiai 1, four vessels (Fig. 38A) could be identified, and among those of Dubičiai 2, eight vessels (Fig. 38B). Dumblynė is the name of an island in Sartai Lake in the Northeast Lithuania. Between 1996 and 2000, an area of 348 m2 was excavated there (Griciuvienė, Grižas 2002). An abundant material of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age settlements was collected. Several pots and one spindle whorl were to be assigned to the CWC (Fig. 39). The Gaigalinė 1 site is located on an island between swamps, north of Biržulis Lake (Fig. 7). In 1983, Butrimas excavated an area of 216 m2 there (Butrimas, Ostrauskienė 2004). At least seven vessels were assigned to the CWC (Fig. 40). Gaigalinė 2 is another site on a hill between the drained swamps of Biržulis Lake. In 1983, Butrimas excavated 172 m2 of the site (Butrimas, Ostrauskienė 2004, 138). 15 vessels belonged to the CWC (Fig. 41). Seven of them could be defined as beakers, and eight were larger and had thicker walls. One CW beaker stood out from the rest with a strongly and sharply flared rim, also ornamented with imprints from the inside (Fig. 41:7). It is reminiscent of the Estonian ceramics of Riigikula XIV type as well as Lithuanian HW vessels, however, differently from the HW, its clay contained grog. Gribaša 4 is a sandy non-stratified site on the coast of the former Duba Lake in Southern Lithuania (Fig. 1). In the years 1998, 1999, and 2000, an area of 169.25 m2 was excavated there (Grinevičiūtė 2002). At least nine vessels belonged to the CWC (Fig. 42). The site of Karaviškės 6 is on the southern coast of the former Duba Lake in Southeast Lithuania (Fig. 43). That is a non-stratified site with mixed non-contemporaneous material of the Stone and Bronze Ages (Piličiauskas 2004). From 1997 to 2001 and 2003 to 2005, an area of 862 m2 was excavated in the western part of the site and an almost entire area of the CWC settlement was investigated. No structures were found that could related to the CW in Karaviškės. Around 6,000 CW potsherds (about 15 kg), which belonged to at least 37 vessels were discovered. The CW of Karaviškės was very homogeneous both stylistically and technologically, which attested to the fact that either a more abundant CWC community had resided there or that it had resided at the site for a longer time. The clay of almost all the CWC vessels contained grog temper in Karaviškės 6. Simultaneously, tiny pores could be observed, likely to have been left from burnt organic material. Often, next to the grog, sand could be seen, and sometimes finely crushed rock. Two potsherds indicated coil building with Z-shaped junctions (Fig. 44:15, 19). However, that applied only to necks and rims. For the bodies, no junctions were found; therefore it was not clear whether the bodies had been built up of coils. The bodies of the pots were rather spherical, and their walls were of uniform thickness and rather smooth, even in cases of a brushed or undulated surface. They may have been shaped by the paddle-and-anvil technique. Of the 37 vessels, one was an amphora (Fig. 44:14), eight were beakers (Fig. 44:1-11), and 219 28 were pots. 20 vessels (54 %) had cordons, including at least six with double cordons (Fig. 44:14, 19). It is possible that there were more vessels with double cordons on the neck, since from the small fragments of ceramics it was not always clear whether there had been one or two cordons. 35 vessels of 37 (95 %) were ornamented. 22 vessels (63 % of the ornamented ones) were decorated with different imprints or notches, including impressions made with a two-pronged tool. Seven vessels (20 % of the ornamented ones) were decorated with pinching or fingernail imprints. Only 5 vessels (14 % of the ornamented ones) were decorated with cord impressions. The only amphora had two cordons decorated with imprints of a two-pronged tool (Fig. 44:14). Only one beaker was decorated with a herringbone pattern (Fig. 44:6). Next to the potsherds, fragments of some oblong ceramic tool were found (Fig. 46:9) as well as two spindle whorls (Fig. 46:10-11). When considering the CW distribution in the excavated area (Fig. 47), we can see two higher density zones of ceramics: the eastern and the western. In the eastern zone, 21 vessels were found, and in the western, 13 were found. All the vessels from the eastern part were short-wave moulded pots. In the western part, some vessels (four of them) had cordons too, however, the majority (six vessels) had no cordons. That probably indicates either certain functional differences between the two habitation zones or insignificant stylistic differences between different potters. Unburnt bones in the Karaviškės 6 settlement were not preserved, however, a considerable amount of burnt ones were found, yet only in very small unidentifiable fragments. Their distribution essentially coincided with the CW distribution (Fig. 48). Typologically, very few flint artefacts could be assigned to the CWC settlement: several fragments of polished axes, bifacial heart-shaped arrowheads, and knives (Fig. 49:11). For the CWC settlement in Karaviškės, 28 were pots. 20 vessels (54 %) had cordons, including at least six with double cordons (Fig. 44:14, 19). It is possible that there were more vessels with double cordons on the neck, since from the small fragments of ceramics it was not always clear whether there had been one or two cordons. 35 vessels of 37 (95 %) were ornamented. 22 vessels (63 % of the ornamented ones) were decorated with different imprints or notches, including impressions made with a two-pronged tool. Seven vessels (20 % of the ornamented ones) were decorated with pinching or fingernail imprints. Only 5 vessels (14 % of the ornamented ones) were decorated with cord impressions. The only amphora had two cordons decorated with imprints of a two-pronged tool (Fig. 44:14). Only one beaker was decorated with a herringbone pattern (Fig. 44:6). Next to the potsherds, fragments of some oblong ceramic tool were found (Fig. 46:9) as well as two spindle whorls (Fig. 46:10-11). When considering the CW distribution in the excavated area (Fig. 47), we can see two higher density zones of ceramics: the eastern and the western. In the eastern zone, 21 vessels were found, and in the western, 13 were found. All the vessels from the eastern part were short-wave moulded pots. In the western part, some vessels (four of them) had cordons too, however, the majority (six vessels) had no cordons. That probably indicates either certain functional differences between the two habitation zones or insignificant stylistic differences between different potters. Unburnt bones in the Karaviškės 6 settlement were not preserved, however, a considerable amount of burnt ones were found, yet only in very small unidentifiable fragments. Their distribution essentially coincided with the CW distribution (Fig. 48). Typologically, very few flint artefacts could be assigned to the CWC settlement: several fragments of polished axes, bifacial heart-shaped arrowheads, and knives (Fig. 49:11). For the CWC settlement in Karaviškės, we have two AMS 14C dates: one from a fragment of an unidentified animal bone (Hela-2481: 4084 } 31 BP (2858-2495 cal BC)) and terrestrial food remains (δ15N = 2.4‰) from a CW potsherd (FTMC-17-25: 3996 } 40 (2626-2351 cal BC)). At the site of Katros ištakos 1 in Southeast Lithuania, in 1997 and 1998, an area of 187 m2 was excavated (Ostrauskas, Rimantienė, 1998; 2000). The ceramics (>4,000 fragments) were very diverse, mainly Subneolithic, GAC, and PCW. Only two vessels and a spindle whorl could be assigned to the CW (Fig. 51A). At the multi-period site of Kiūčiai, Iron Age finds predominated (Petrulienė 1988), however, in 2017, potsherds of a short-wave moulded pot and of a beaker decorated with a herringbone pattern were found (Fig. 51B). Some CW were found in the northern sector at the site of Kretuonas 1, where an area of 868 m2 was excavated between 1979 and 1985 (Girininkas 1980; 1982; 1984; 1986). Subneolithic ceramics were clearly dominant, although finds of the GAC, CW, PCW, and the Iron Age also occurred. Stratigraphically, the finds of specific periods did not stand out. The CW potsherds belonged to at least 13 vessels. The site of Kvietiniai 1 is on the terrace of the Minija River in Western Lithuania. It was discovered in 2014 and excavated in 2015, as it was crossed by a designed pipeline. An area of about 2,000 m2 was uncovered, and 10 cremation graves were found, surviving from the Early Iron Age barrows with destroyed burial mounds. Moreover, a 20 to 30 cm thick paleosol, an archaeological layer of the Neolithic and Bronze Age, was discovered as well as about 100 sunken archaeological features from various periods (Vengalis et al. 2016). The PCW from the EBA predominated among the ceramics. The potsherds assigned to the CW came from at least 11 vessels (Fig. 52:1-3). The Kvietiniai 2 site was found in 2017, 420 m northeast of the settlement of Kvietiniai 1. At leasttwo herringbone beakers belonged to the CW (Fig. 52:4-5). The site of Lynupis is in Southeast Lithuania, on a 2.5-3 m sand hill at the Lynupis stream. In 1966, an area of 156 m2 was excavated there (Rimantienė 1985). That was a non-stratified multi-period site. Seven vessels belonged to the CWC (Fig. 53). The site of Margiai 1 is in Southeast Lithuania, on the northern coast of the former Duba Lake (Fig. 1). In the period of 1980 through 1981, an area of 1,064 m2 was excavated. Huge amounts of flint and ceramics were collected; the finds dated back to a period from the final Paleolithic to the Iron Age (Rimantienė 1999d). At least 18 vessels could be assigned to the CW (Fig. 54). Nida has been known as a RC settlement and was excavated between 1974 and 1978 (Rimantienė 1989), in 2011 through 2013, and in 2016 (Piličiauskas 2016; Piličiauskas, Heron 2015; Piličiauskas et al. 2017c). The chronology of the settlement (3200-2600/2500 cal BC) partially overlapped with the CWC (2800-2400 cal BC). That was reflected in ceramics – in short-wave moulded pots and beakers manufactured in accordance with the RC clay mass recipes (fine and medium-coarse granite), yet decorated in accordance with the CWC tradition (finger-pinched cordons, hatched triangles, etc.). However, some typical CW items were also found, such as grog-tempered short-wave moulded pots and beakers. The section of 2013 (Fig. 55:A) testified to the fact that the typical CW was not the latest and did not belong to a separate stage of the settlement following the RC. Either CW vessels had been imported to the RC settlement or CWC potters lived there. That took place in the later stage of the existence of RC, as attested by the distribution of CW in the section of excavations in 2016 (Fig. 55:B). In Pervalka on the Curonian Spit, the CW had been found in several different places before the Second World War (Gaerte 1927, Abb. 243) as well as during survey expeditions in the Soviet era (Tautavičius 1963š). In the National Museum of Lithuania, the potsherds of about 5 CWC vessels are stored (Fig. 57). Šventoji 1 is famous for CWC or RC finds. In 1967 to 1969, 2006, and 2016, an area of 1,860 m2 was excavated (Rimantienė 1979; 1980; 2007; Brazaitis 2007; Piličiauskas et al. 2017d). Different researchers interpreted the site as a settlement, a sacrifice site, a riverine site, or a fishing/dumping site in a lake (see discussion in Piličiauskas 2016). All the ceramics from the Šventoji 1 site containing no shell temper had previously been assigned to the CWC or the RC, using the names as synonyms (Rimantienė 1980a; 2005). In 2017, after the revision of an abundant Neolithic pottery collection, it was found to be not homogeneous: it consisted of 55 GAC and 33 CWC vessels (Fig. 58-61). Those types of ceramics were markedly different in their clay mass, in shapes, and in ornamentation. One can assume that the waste of culturally different, yet chronologically very close, settlements in the sediments of the lagoonal lake were found in one horizon, and therefore were not separated by Rimantienė. Šventoji 40 is an exclusive site in Šventoji, as it was discovered at the Šventoji River, and not on the former lagoonal lakes as the other sites were. It is situated higher than the rest (about 5.5 m a.s.l.) and has a broader chronology (the Mesolithic through the Bronze Age) (Piličiauskas 2016). In 1967, Rimantienė excavated a trench with an area of 28 m2 (Rimantienė 2005). In 2013, the excavations were resumed by digging test pits (Fig. 63), and in two of them, pits filled with blackish sand, charcoal and fire-cracked rocks were found (Piličiauskas et al. 2014). The excavations were resumed in 2016 (Piličiauskas et al. 2017e). Since in the excavation of 2013 some CW were found, the discovered pits were expected to be the remains of CWC buildings. To explore them, two separate plots were excavated in the eastern and western parts of the site (Fig. 66). The pit (Feature 9) explored in the eastern part of the site, shaped as an irregular circleapproximately 3 m in diameter and 0.3 m deep, was filled with fine sand with humus and contained charcoal (Fig. 64). In the northern part under it, a sunken fireplace, 0.6 m in diameter and 0.2 m deep, with fire-cracked rocks was found (Fig. 65). Another fireplace was north-west of the pit, next to it. That was a round stain of black sand with charcoal, 0.3 m in diameter and 0.1 cm thick. It was tightly packed with fire-cracked rocks and contained no other archaeological finds (Fig. 64). In Feature 9, bipolar flint pieces as well as burnt hazelnut shells were found. The AMS 14C dates of the charcoal and burnt hazelnut shell (Poz-65434: 7260 } 50 and Poz-8527: 7010 } 50 BP respectively) testified to the fact that Feature 9 belonged to the Mesolithic (ca. 6000 cal BC), and not to the CWC. Feature 9 could be interpreted as a pit-house of the Late Mesolithic with one hearth inside and another one outside. In the western part of the settlement, the pit filled with humus sand and charcoal (Feature 19) was significantly larger than the first one: it was 5 m wide, at least 5 m long, and 0.35-0.45 m deep. In contrast with Feature 9, it must have been a natural depression in which the cultural layer of the Stone and Bronze Age settlements survived undisturbed. The date of a hazelnut shell from Feature 19 also indicated the Late Mesolithic (Poz-89305: 7610 } 50 BP, 6588-6396 cal BC). The CW was found both in the eastern and western parts of the Šventoji 40 site, however, were scarce in both of them. The minimal number of vessels was five (Fig. 67). The Varėnė 5 site in Southern Lithuania was discovered in 1986, and an area of 8 m2 was excavated (Ostrauskas 1996). Then, in one place, several large CW potsherds were found that belonged to three similar vessels (Fig. 68). In 1996-1997, another area of 170 m2 was excavated, however, no more CW were found (Juodagalvis 2002). The site may have been not a settlement but a CWC grave, in which the skeleton did not survive. Zapsė 5 is an archaeological site with a broad chronology in Southern Lithuania whose extremely abundant material is still yet to be explored and published. It is located on a sandy hill at the mouth of the Zapsė River on a headland of Veisiejis Lake. From 1992 to 1998, an area of 390 m2 was excavated. The finds and features belonged to the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age settlements and an Iron Age cemetery (Juodagalvis, 1994; Grižas, Juodgalvis, 1996; 1998; Grižas, Žegunis 2000). Next to the Subneolithic ceramics, GAC, PCW, and the CW were found (at least ten CW vessels) (Fig. 69). CEMETERIES In 2007, Žukauskaitė conducted a review of the 20 CWC graves currently found in the territory of present-day Lithuania (Žukauskaitė 2007). From them, only 5 skeletons have survived: in Gyvakarai, Plinkaigalis (2 individuals), Spiginas, and Donkalnis. In Spiginas (grave 2) and Donkalnis (grave 6), the dead were buried on their sides, in a flexed position, or on the back, the legs bent under them. Dating the graves by the AMS radiocarbon dating method proved that neither of them belonged to the CWC (Piličiauskas et al. 2017f). Grave 6 of Donkalnis was dated back to the Subneolithic (Poz-61574: 5770 } 40; 4720-4530 cal BC) by the Poznań Radiocarbon Laboratory. Grave 2 in Spiginas, previously dated back to the CWC period (Gin- 5570: 4080 } 120; 2910-2300 cal BC) was re-dated by the Poznań Radiocarbon Laboratory as belonging to the PCW period: Poz-61573: 3580 } 60; 2130-1750 cal BC. The graves in Šakyna (Šiauliai district) and Paštuva (Kaunas district) could not be assigned to the CWC as it had been previously (Žukauskaitė 2007), since the bones were not dated by the 14C dating method, and furthermore the positions of deceased were not documented and no grave goods typical of the CWC were found. From the list of the CWC graves by Žukauskaitė (2004), an individual from Veršvai should also be removed: the body was buried crouched on the right side, however, with no grave goods. The bodies were occasionally buried in that position both in the Subneolithic and in the Iron Age, therefore, it could not be an argument for assigning the grave to the CWC, unless there was some other evidence present. In 2014, a new CWC grave was discovered in the city of Biržai, unfortunately, disturbed by construction work (Duderis 2015). It was a grave of a 30 to 35-year-old man, buried on the back with the legs bent, dating back to 2570–2350 cal BC (Piličiauskas et al. 2017h). The grave goods contained a boar tusk, a bone pin made of a fibula of a pig or a boar, a polished flint axe, and a blade-knife (Fig. 70). In 2014, two skeletons – from grave 1 of a female and grave 3 of an infant at the Benaičiai site in Western Lithuania – previously assigned to the Bronze Age (Merkevičius 2002, 2005) were re-dated as belonging to the CWC. Before, grave 3 had been dated 1020-670 cal BC in a conventional laboratory in Kiev; then a goat bone with cutting marks was taken for dating. In 2014, in the Poznań Radiocarbon Laboratory, new dates were received for human bone samples from graves 1 and 3, 2620- 2470 and 2830-2470 cal BC, respectively. The dates, as well as the shapes of amber pendants from grave 1 characteristic to the CWC, indicated that those buried in Benaičiai were CWC representatives from the mid-3rd millennium cal BC (Piličiauskas et al. 2017h). In the summer of 2017, in the same Benaičiai, I managed to find another, possibly the third, CWC grave 5. Its remains were noticed in the wall of an illegal gravel pit and explored through 1.5x3 m size test pit. The bones lay not in an anatomical order, but in a pile of an approximately 0.5 m size within a 0.7x1.8 m pit of dark brown gravel, with its major part dug off by an excavator. The individual buried in the grave was 10 to 15 years old, of whom the gender could not be identified (Piličiauskas et al. 2018). In the grave pit, a flint knife was detected (Fig. 72). The human bone dated back to FTMC-17-10: 4166 } 50; 2889-2600 cal BC, however, the date is unreliable due to poor collagen preservation. Currently, about 20 CWC graves are known in Lithuania (Table 2). In the territory of Lithuania, as well as in the entire East Baltic region, the CWC people used to bury their dead in individual graves or small cemeteries. The graves did not have earth piles, differing from the larger part of Scandinavia and Central Europe. In Lithuania, the dead were buried either crouched on their sides or on their back with bent legs. There were too few informative graves in Lithuania allowing the ability to identify the trends in the direction of burying the dead or of the relationship between the way of burying and the gender. The principal grave goods found in the Lithuanian CWC graves were similar to the CWC graves all over Europe: stone battle axes, flint axes and knives, bone pins, and amber jewellery. Compared with other countries, ceramics in the Lithuanian CWC graves were found very rarely. CERAMICS The examination of ceramics conducted in this study differed from previous ones by the fact that the main research object was a vessel, and not a potsherd. Relatively small amounts of the CW at Lithuanian sites and abundant ornamentation allowed the treatment of individual vessels. Considerably greater attention than before was paid to the clay mass of which the recipes were conservative and difficult to copy, and therefore served as the main criterion in the recognition of the continuity or transformation of a culture. The name of the CWC suggests it is as if cord impressions on the walls of ceramic vessels are the main feature of the CW. However, that is not the case. Cord impressions were found in a number of Neolithic cultures in Europe (e.g., Sredny Stog, Dereivka, FBC, Trypilian) (Kośko, Szmyt 2010), while in Lithuania, they were more frequently applied by the GAC and especially the RC potters than by the CWC ones. The main distinguishingfeature of the Lithuanian CW was technological, i.e. specific recipes of the clay mass. The Lithuanian CW had not undergone petrographic analysis, therefore, we had to manage by visual evaluation of potsherd surfaces. In the clay mass of the majority of the Lithuanian CW, grog temper could be found: crumbs of the previously fired pots. The presence of an old vessel in a new one was important ideologically, as it meant continuity and the birth of the new from the old, as confirmed by ethnographic research (Gosselain 1999). The grog temper in the clay mass of ceramic vessels also had a very clear utilitarian meaning: to increase the resistance to thermal shock (Skibo 2013). Before the early 21st century, the grog temper in Lithuanian ceramics had almost never been mentioned. Granite was named as a typical temper of the CW (Rimantienė 1980a), however, this was a mistake caused by the fact that the RC and PCW, characterised by granite temper, were not differentiated from the CW. In Latvia and Estonia, grog temper was also unidentified for a long time, while the grog-tempered CW was characterised as having no temper; sometimes just sand coming together with grog or individual granite crumbs were noticed in it (Янитс 1959; Лозе 1979; Loze 1992; Ванкина 1980; Loze 2003). Grog was identified in 270 Lithuanian CWC vessels (~85 %). On the break surfaces of another 28 CW vessels, no temper was noticed, although they may have contained grog; however it is not possible to determine without a thin section microscopy. Thus, the clay mass of as many as ~95 % of the vessels may have been tempered with grog. Next to grog, sand was often found, however, it may have been a natural admixture. Another important part of the CW clay mass recipe was organics. On the broken edges of the majority of the CW potsherds, small pores of <1 mm in size were visible to the naked eye. They did not resemble pores caused by small plant remains or hairs. In the Fatyanovo culture ceramics, similar pores could be observed, and its researchers believed they had been left by the manure of birds or ruminants (Волкова 1996). The CW bases seemed to have been moulded from either one clay slab (Fig. 57:4) or two of them (Fig. 44:9), and afterwards, the walls were built up on them. The walls of prehistoric ceramics were usually made of coils, joined together in several ways (Fig. 74). The ways of coil joining were established in the case of merely 35 CW vessels from among approximately 350 identified specimens, i.e. about 10 % of all the vessels. 16 vessels were found to have Z-type junctions (46 % of all the established cases) and 13 had N-type junctions (46 % of all the established cases). Only in two cases, n-type junctions were established, while in one case it was either n- or U-type. The surfaces of the CW beakers and amphorae were smooth, while the exterior of the pots was mainly smoothed only in the upper part, which was ornamented, leaving the bodies untidily brushed (Fig. 34:4; 38:9; 53:2) and sometimes undulated (Fig. 34:3, 5, 7; 67:4). In terms of shapes, the CW can be divided into the following types: beakers, short-wave moulded pots, pots without cordons, and amphorae (Fig. 75). Specific types of CW vessels were decorated with specific ornaments, typical of just that type. Beakers were decorated with cord impressions or with incised lines in the patterns of herringbone or hatched triangles, while the short-wave moulded pots were never decorated in such motifs. Only amphorae were characterised by vertical bunches of incised lines. The main types of the CWC vessels in Lithuania were beakers and short-wave moulded pots. There were few amphorae found: merely five in total are attested. In the lagoonal lake sediments in Šventoji 1, the CW survived the best: almost intact vessels were found there (e.g., in Fig. 76) as well as their large fragments. However, their reconstructions performed in the National Museum of Lithuania (Fig. 77-82) were not very reliable, because there were simplynot any data on their bottom parts. In Šventoji 1, the shapes of the CW vessels rather markedly differed from the GAC ones (Fig. 83). The GAC wide- mouthed pots were larger in diameter and had thinner walls that the CW short-wave moulded pots. Meanwhile, smaller GAC vessels that markedly differed from the CW beakers by different wall profiles could not be distinguished by the diameter of their mouths or the thickness of the walls. The vessel-type composition could be established in the material of the sites of Daktariškė 5, Šventoji 1, Karaviškės 6, and Abora 1 in Latvia, with over 30 items found in each of them. Short-wave moulded pots were more abundant in Karaviškės 6 as anywhere else, and especially in Abora 1. However, it was at Abora 1 that beakers and amphorae accounted for a much larger share of the ceramics collection than anywhere else (Fig. 84). At the CWC sites, other ceramic artefacts than vessels had seldom been found. One type of the artefacts was biconical spindle whorls found merely in the Eastern and Southern Lithuania, at the sites of Dumblynė, Karaviškės 6, and Katros ištakos 1 (Fig. 39:5; 51:1; 46:10, 11). In the contexts of the CWC of other countries, they had not been found, although one specimen was found in a GAC ritual feature in Kujawy (Szmyt 1996, rys. 21). Only 4 % of the CW vessels in Lithuania were not ornamented. Almost always, it was only the neck or the upper part of the vessel that were decorated with ornaments. The rims of about 1/3 of the vessels were decorated. Merely each 50th vessel had the inner side of the rim decorated, while the bases were never decorated. On dividing ornaments into 4 groups by the predominant element – cord impression, incision, pinching/fingers, and imprints – one could see that each group got about 25 % of the vessels (Fig. 85). It was the short-wave moulded pots that were mainly decorated with finger and nail imprints or pinching (Fig. 86:A), while for beakers, incised and cord impression ornaments were used (Fig. 86:B). All the other vessels were decorated with cords and only S-twisted, as in Sweden (Larsson 2009a), and differently from the PCW where the Z-twisting was dominant. In Eastern Lithuania, the CW were more frequently decorated with various impressions, while in the west of it, with pinched and incised ornaments. The CW of the Abora 1 site in Latvia differed from the Lithuanian ceramics by its ornamentation: incised ornaments prevailed, and the cases of short-wave moulded pots with pinched or finger or nail imprinted cordons were very rare (Fig. 84). The CW decoration mainly consisted of one element, if we refused to consider cordons as decoration. The instrument used to decorate the outside of the neck was also used to decorate the rim. The rule did not apply to the vessels with cord-impressed decorations whose rims were either not decorated at all or were imprinted with nails or an instrument (Fig. 30:1; 31:2). A band of horizontal cords on the neck of the CW vessels was never interrupted by a zone of vertical cords, as was customary for the GAC and RC ceramics (Fig. 95:2, 8). About 30 % of the Lithuanian CW have cordons on the neck, and no less than 13 % of them had double cordons. The cordons were almost always decorated: pinched, imprinted with fingers or an instrument, sometimes a two-pronged. Perforated holes in the CW occurred much more seldom than in the Subneolithic, GAC, or RC ceramics. The vessels were not mended and were used as grog in the manufacturing of new vessels. In the Lithuanian CW, three styles could be distinguished: Pan-European, impressed, and incised. The assignment of individual sites to one of them was usually very complicated due to the small amounts of ceramics (Table 3). Pan-European style combined the shapes and ornaments of ceramics widespread in Central Europe, i.e. short-wave moulded pots, pinched or decorated with relief cordons featuring finger imprints, A-type amphorae, and beakers. Even if not pure, the style could be well identified at the sites of Šventoji 1 (Fig. 59-61) andDaktariškės 5 (Fig. 33). Little or no Pan-European CW was found in Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, northwestern Russia, and on the middle Dnieper; however, it was common in Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland (Nielsen 1989; Furholt 2003; Muller et al. 2009). The impressed style stood out due to the short-wave moulded pots of which the cordons were mildly pronounced and decorated with imprints made with special tools, frequently two-pronged. Such ceramics were best known from the Karaviškės 6 site; it was found in northeastern Poland (Bezzenberger 1919; La Baume 1939), it was quite frequent in Finland (Edgren 1970, Plansch 1-3, 10-13, 15) and in Latvia (Лозе 1979, таблица XLIII), while in Estonia it was scarce. The incised style was distinguished by its herringbone and hatched triangles patterns. That kind of ceramics was very common in Western Lithuania and on the middle Dnieper, even though the hatched triangles were frequently not incised, but imprinted with cords (Артеменко 1967, рис. 2-5, 14; Крывальцэвіч 2006, мал. 34:1; 37); the style was especially marked in the RC settlements in Nida and Rzucewo (Rimantienė 1989, Fig. 55:2; 61:4; Żurek 1954, rys. 4-8). It is not yet clear to date who copied the hatched triangles from whom. Inside the cooking pots and at the neck outside, food remains were discovered, i.e. charred black or dark brown crust up to 2 mm thick (Fig. 87). At dry, sandy sites, foodcrusts seldom survive, while in waterlogged lacustrine sites, vessels with soot and/or foodcrusts account for 1/5 to 1/3 of all ceramics (Table 4). In 2014-2017, a lipid residue analysis was carried out in 34 CW vessels or their foodcrusts (Robson et al. in prep.). The information obtained was very important for the understanding of the functions of the CW vessels (Table 5). Most of them seemed to have not been intended for one specific product, or possibly the primary function was masked by secondary use. Short-wave moulded pots in the CWC settlements were undoubtedly used for thermal food processing. Inside them, ruminant adipose and aquatic food remains were found as well as birch bark tar that may have been used to seal the pot or which may have been produced in a ceramic vessel (e.g., Fig. 34:3). The beakers contained remains of dairy products, aquatic food, and ruminant adipose, therefore, it was not a vessel for keeping one product. Occasionally, ceramics were found of which the clay mass was tempered by shells, however, the elements of the ornament and /or vessel shapes were typical of the Neolithic cultures, such as the GAC or the CWC (Fig. 88-91). This was the case with HW; they were produced by the descendants of the Subneolithic hunters-gatherers who lived side-by-side with the CWC and GAC people and who copied the shapes of the vessels of the Neolithic cultures. High δ15N values (8.8 } 1.4‰) of the HW foodcrusts indicate that the HW, like the Subneolithic ceramics, used to keep aquatic food. The copying of the ceramics shapes was one-sided: the CWC people never copied the Subneolithic ceramics. The dating of the HW has so far been obscure, part of it may have come from the post-CWC period. During the completion of this book, the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and Finnish CW assemblages were examined from the National History Museum of Latvia in Rīga, the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Art History in Tallinn, the Narva Museum, and the Finnish National Board of Antiquities in Helsinki (Table 6). During the analysis of the Latvian CW, it turned out that the cord-impressed ceramics from Tojāti (Fig. 93) had been previously misassigned to the CW. Besides Tojāti, the ceramics of that type is known in only one place, i.e. the Kvietiniai 1 site in Western Lithuania, and it dates back to the EBA. The Lejasbiteni vessel (Ванкина 1980, pиc. 4:8) also ought to be assigned to the PCW, and not to the CW. The largest amount of the CW in Latvia was collected at the Abora 1 site in Latvia, although 100 CW vessels accounted for just a small part of the ceramics collectionin which the Subneolithic ceramics predominated. The CW complex of the Abora 1 site is unique and greatly differs from the material of other Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian settlements (Fig. 84). The CW of Western and Central Latvia is much closer to the Lithuanian CW that the ceramics of Abora 1. In the material of the Lubāns Lake sites, several GAC vessels were identified (Fig. 94). The ceramics decorated with cord impressions in the Estonian site of Tamula (Fig. 95) have been previously classified as the CW, yet it is actually much closer to the Lithuanian and Latvian GAC ceramics. At Riigikula XIV site, ceramics tempered with plants and grog were found (Fig. 96, 97). No beakers or short-wave moulded pots typical of the East Baltic CW were found there. The Riigikula XIV ceramics profiles and rim decoration with cord impressions are found among the Lithuanian PCW, therefore, a question arises whether the Riigikula XIV-type ceramics is not later than the CWC. The Finnish CW is close to the Eastern Lithuanian CW by shape, ornamentation, and temper, although herringbone patterns and round bases were more frequently found in Finland. In Lithuania, the main differences between the PCW and CW include the presence of coarse granite in the clay mass of the PCW and the absence of beakers, short-wave moulded pots, and amphorae typical of the CW. Neolithic and EBA Late Porous Ware, including the HW vessels, tended to continue the Subneolithic traditions, while the PCW continued the CW traditions. The term of PCW includes also the ceramics both close to the Trzciniec culture (Fig. 99) and dissimilar to it (Fig. 25, 26, 93, 98). Its internal periodisation and chronology are still in its development. STONE AXES Battle or boat-shaped stone axes are some of the most characteristic CWC features (Fig. 100). The present book focuses on ceramics and does not specifically explore stone axes. They were usually stray finds, discovered in graves or settlements, or in hoards. In 1974, 557 boat-shaped axes from the territory of Lithuania were counted (Bagušienė, Rimantienė 1974); however, the assignment of some of the so-called ‘Baltic-type’ axes to the class of battle axes has been questionable; therefore, the actual number of battle axes in Lithuania is lower. Moreover, the number is very small compared with Sweden, Finland, and Jutland where battle axes are counted in thousands (Malmer 2002; Nordqvist, Hakala, 2014; Hubner 2005). Most of the battle axes were found in the western part of Lithuania, quite a few in Central Lithuania, and very few in Eastern Lithuania (Fig. 1). The distribution of the boat-shaped axes reflects the same trend, which was also evidenced by ceramics: the establishment of the CWC in Western and Central Lithuania and only an episodic role played by it in Northeast Lithuania. Previously conducted petrographic studies showed that some of the boat- shaped axes, including those of Fatyanovo type, found in Lithuania must have been manufactured in Western Ukraine or in Poland. In the RC settlement in Nida, only work axes without holes were manufactured and used, which was indicative of the opposition to the CWC, despite certain similarities in the ornamentation of ceramics. The GAC people, who lived in Central Europe next to the CWC, while at the same time they did not adopt or copy battle axes, either, and used square flint axes. FLINT ARTEFACTS In Lithuania, six CWC graves out of approximately 20 contained flint tools (Table 2). Those included blades/knives and polished axes. In the Norūnai hoard, next to two boat-shaped axes, there were five flint square axes and two blades/knives (Brazaitis, Piličiauskas 2005). In the CWC settlements, flint was seldom knapped. All three flint axes from the Lithuanian CWC graves were made of non-local raw material: white or light grey mat chalk flint, the closest deposits of which were in Southern Lithuania or Western Belarus. In Karaviškės 5, a flake was found removed from an edge of a polished square axe (Fig. 49:11). The axe was made of banded flint, the deposits of which are in Southern Poland. In the CWC settlements, even in regions rich in flint, polished flint axes were often knapped as cores, while the obtained flakes were used to make knives or arrowheads (Fig. 49:3). Flint knives were discovered in the graves of both genders, also including adolescents, and they were known in settlements and in one hoard. Those were either slightly retouched long and wide blades (Fig. 70:2), or frequently retouched artefacts, sometimes over the entire perimeter (Fig. 49:8). The conducted use-wear analysis indicated they were used for cutting meat or soft hide. No flint arrowheads were found in the CWC graves in the Eastern Baltic region. The only ones found in the settlements were bifacial triangular or heart-shaped (Fig. 49:1-4, 6-7). BONE ARTEFACTS We found two bone awls from graves 1 and 3 in Benaičiai, one bone pin and a boar tusk from Biržai ,and 1 bone hammer-head pin from Gyvakarai (Table 2). The bone pin from Biržai was made of the fibula of a pig or a boar (Fig. 70:3). As indicated by its use-wear analysis, the pinpoint was used to grind or crush some material, i.e. used as a pestle (Piličiauskas et al. 2018). The hammer-head pin from Gyvakarai was close to the Yamnaya culture artefacts (Tebelškis, Jankauskas 2006), which were mainly used in the steppes during the early CWC period (Shishlina et al. 2010). In the CWC graves in Latvia and Estonia, substantially more bone artefacts were found, and the extensive use of bone may explain scant flint knapping waste in Eastern Baltic settlements. AMBER ARTEFACTS A fragment of a key-shaped amber pendant found in Daktariškė 5 is assigned to the CWC (Butrimas 2016, Fig. 13:17). Similar articles were found in the Middle Dnieper (Артеменко 1967, рис. 47:30), in Latvia (Лозе, 1979, таблица LV), and in Juodkrantė (Rimantienė 1999b, Fig. 46). Axe-shaped pendants were found in ‘female grave 1’ in the Benaičiai cemetery. Similar ones are known in Latvia, near Lubāns Lake, and in the Middle Dnieper. Part of the amber discs found at the site of Daktariškė 5 may have belonged to the CWC, but not to the GAC, as suggested by the Būtingė hoard, in which an amber disc was found together with a boat-shaped stone axe (Rimantienė 2005, Fig. 385). Amber seemed to have been more abundantly used on the western than on the eastern coast of the Baltic during the Corded Ware period. CHRONOLOGY The analysis of the CWC chronology in Lithuania was made difficult by the fact that most of the material had been found at non-stratified multi-period sites, and the CW was often undistinguished from the GAC, PCW, and RC. There was a shortage of 14C dates, which could be safely related to the CWC material. Incorrect bone collagen 14C dates received in conventional laboratories were misleading: they were specified by the revision of the dates of some graves in AMS radiocarbon laboratories. Ultimately, the 2880–2580 and 2470–2200 BC plateaus in the 14C date calibration curve significantly hindered the development of the internal CWC periodisation. The specification of the CWC chronology was greatly facilitated by the excavations and dates of the Alksnynė short-term sites as well as by the AMS radiocarbon dates of terrestrial food remains at the other CWC sites. The δ15N values of terrestrial food remains usually are not higher to 6 ‰. They could be safely dated (Fig. 101), avoiding the freshwater reservoir effect which makes the 14C dates of aquatic foodcrusts older several hundred years (Fig. 102). Currently, we have 23 14C dates from the CWC settlements and graves (Table 7), which indicate the 2900-2400 cal BC CWC chronology (Table 103) and thus suggest that the CWC period lasted between 258-612 years with the 95.4 % probability, from 2964/2714 cal BC to 2478/2321 cal BC. By introducing the latest dates of Subneolithic Porous Ware from the Šventoji 4 site and the oldest PCW dates from the Daktariškė 5 site into the CWC chronology model, we can slightly adjust the period of the CWC in Lithuania as 2887/2706-2471/2352 cal BC or, more simply, as ca. 2800-2400 cal BC. This range corresponds well to the CWC chronologies in other countries as well as to the dendrodates of the lacustrine CWC sites in Switzerland. The Lithuanian CWC chronology, clearly defined for the first time, allows us to refine the local pottery sequence (Fig. 104). In the development of the internal CWC periodisation, it is necessary to adjust it to the limitations of the radiocarbon calibration curve. Furholt (2003, Fig. 2) split the 3rd millennium cal BC calibration curve into 8 phases (Fig. 105). If to distribute the Lithuanian CWC sites by calibration curve segments (Fig. 106), the CW styles would not line up in a chronological order: all of them must have existed simultaneously. A big problem was caused by the fact that even though the CW of some sites (e.g., of Karaviškės 6 and Alksnynė 3) stylistically look very homogeneous, the 14C dates give calibrated ages covering the entire duration of the CWC phenomenon. Therefore, no reliable internal CWC periodisation can be developed before we have high-resolution stratigraphy in the CWC settlements or dendrodates. SETTLEMENT PATTERN AND BUILDINGS The CWC sites were widely distributed across Lithuania: at almost every Stone Age site, provided a large area was excavated, some CW were found. In the period of the CWC, compared with the Subneolithic, the significance of rivers increased. 43 % of the CWC sites were near rivers, 35 % near lakes, and 22 % at lagoons (Fig. 107). It seemed likely that the CWC settlement system was more similar to that of the Mesolithic hunters-gatherers than to that of the Subneolithic fishermen who used to settle down at large, shallow, and lakes that were rich in fish. In 80 % of all the CW sites, the minimal number of vessels did not exceed five (Fig. 108). Small amounts of ceramics in the CWC settlements suggested that those settlements had been short-lived. One exception was Karaviškės 6 where people had lived for a longer period of time, possibly in winter. Great mobility of the CWC people was evidenced by a large number or artefacts that came from far away, such as flint axes and knives as well as stone battle axes. Almost nothing is known about the CWC buildings in Lithuania. In Alksnynė 3 and 4, several postholes and remains of a possible pit-house about 3 m in diameter were found (Fig. 4, 6, 7). Most likely, the CWC people used to build lightweight huts whose remains did not survive. ECONOMY AND DIET In the discussions of the CWC economy, we cannot refer to the pollen data, as pollen columns mainly used to be dated by the 14C method when dating the bulk organics from the lacustrine sediments, while the freshwater reservoir effect remained unassessed (Piličiauskas et al. 2017g). Stone hoes, quern stones, and the flint sickle blades could serve as proof that cultivated plants were grown in the CWC settlements, however, so far none of such finds could be firmly been assigned to the CWC. There is little zooarchaeological material associated with the CWC. The principal problem is that mainly multi-period sites with non-stratified archaeological layers were excavated. In shortterm site Alksnynė 3, the fragments of the identified 61 bones included those of pig, cattle, sheep/ goat, seal, roe deer, and the freshwater fish of the Curonian Lagoon. In Alksnynė 4, four bone fragments were identified that belonged to pig/boar, aurochs/bison/cattle, sheep/goat, and red deer. The finds suggested that, on the Curonian Spit, the basis of the CWC diet had consisted of the meat of domestic animals, although some lagoon fish and seals had also been eaten. In the RC settlement in Nida, the freshwater fish species of the Curonian lagoon were dominant. In about 2500 cal BC, sedentary RC fishermen had already settled down in Nida, while at the same time or slightly later, in the northern part of the Spit, the CWC people were herding their stock. On the mainland, merely two bone finds from the graves could be assigned to the CWC: a boar tusk from Biržai and a goat bone from grave 3 in Benaičiai. From 2015 to 2016, , about 100 l of soil from archaeological layers were flotated at the site of Kvietiniai 1, 160 l at Alksnynė 3, 960 l at Nida, and 400 l at Šventoji 40 (Vengalis et al. 2016; Piličiauskas et al. 2017a; c; e). In two pits in Kvietiniai, charred barley grains were discovered, one of them dating back to 1409-1219 cal BC (Vengalis et al. in prep.). In Alksnynė, Nida, and Šventoji 40, few fragments of burnt hazelnut shells were found. Therefore, so far, there is no macrobotanical evidence of the CWC people in Lithuanian having grown cultivated plants. The bone collagen N and C stable isotopes ratios indicate the dominance of terrestrial food in the Lithuanian CWC people’s protein diet (Fig. 109), most likely meat and milk of domestic animals. The diet of the CWC individuals on the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic must have been fairly uniform (Piličiauskas et al. 2017f; 2018a). From 2014 to 2017, bulk samples of food remains in 58 CWC vessels were analysed by EA-IRMS (Piličiauskas et al. 2018). Assuming that δ15N values above 6‰ indicates aquatic food, and lower ones, terrestrial, we can argue that the CWC vessels mainly kept terrestrial food, while the Subneolithic and HW ones, aquatic food (Fig. 92). By GC-MS and GC-C-IRMS, 34 CW vessels were analysed (Robson et al. in prep.). The most often found compounds were characteristic of ruminant adipose and aquatic products, less frequently, plants, dairy products, non-ruminant fats, and birch bark tar were identified (Table 5). The findings were consistent with the model of a mixed economy in which fishing played an important role. THE ORIGIN OF THE LITHUANIAN CWC PEOPLE. RELATIONS WITH LOCAL HUNTERS-GATHERERS As attested by the DNA research of the East Baltic CWC skeletons, the CWC was brought to the East Baltic coast and Central Europe by migrants from the Black Sea steppes, the Yamnaya culture area (Mittnik et al. 2018). Simultaneously with the new culture, nomadic pastoralism spread, as demonstrated by the settlement pattern, zooarchaeological material, and bone collagen stable isotope ratios. The analyses of food remains in ceramics indicated the importance of aquatic food and confirmed that livestock raisers had adapted to the local environmental conditions and had not ignored other sources of food. The individuals from Plinkaigalis grave 242 and the Gyvakarai cemetery were genetically very close to the Yamnaya nomads, while the other CWC individuals (Plinkaigalis 241, Kunila 2, Sope, Ardu) demonstrated the genetic ancestry of the Yamnaya mixed with a minor component of the early farmers from Central Europe originating from Anatolia (Saag et al. 2017; Mittnik et al. 2018). The relatively scarce data of the DNA research revealed two possible versions of the CWC origin in East Baltic. In accordance with the first one, the CWC came to the East Baltic directly from the East European steppes and received the genetic component typical of the Central European farmers through mixing with the local GAC people. In accordance with the second version, the CWC people migrated to Lithuania and the adjacent lands from two regions: from the Black Sea and from Central Europe where, through the women of the local farmers, they incorporated the Anatolian component into their genome. All over the CWC area, grog became the main temper in the clay mass of ceramic vessels. Not so many traditions of grog-tempered pottery production have been attested. The ceramic vessels of the Yamnaya culture, from which the CWC representatives had genetically originated, were very seldom tempered with grog. Grog was widely used in the Polish FBC while in the FBC settlements in Kujawy, short-wave moulded pots analogous to the CW were found (Kurzawa 2001; Kukawka 2015). As mentioned above, the CWC potters could have borrowed amphorae in Poland, from the GAC ceramics (Furholt 2014). It is highly probable that most of the characteristic features of the CW had been born in the present territory of Poland, which can have been crossed by the main road of migration of the steppe nomads to the European forest zone (Fig. 110). The modern populations of the East Baltic region have preserved the largest amount of the genetic ancestry of hunters-fishermen in Europe (Lazaridis et al. 2014; Malmstrom et al. 2009), therefore, the merging of immigrants from the steppes and local hunters-gatherers definitely took place. Although an important question to be asked is when this occurred. It seems that the nomads having arrived from the steppes and the local hunters-gatherers started merging not immediately in the CWC period, but only in the second half of the Neolithic. Just at the end of the Neolithic (2130-1750 cal BC), an individual from grave 2 in Spiginas in his genome, alongside the predominant Yamnaya ancestry, contained a significant genetic component of Mesolithic hunters-gatherers, uncharacteristic of the CWC individuals. Archaeological sources tend to confirm this idea: in the CWC period in Eastern Lithuania and Latvia, the communities continuing the traditions of hunters-gatherers in economy and in pottery production survived, and the CWC archaeological material did not show any signs of cultural influence from the local Subneolithic people. Only in the PCW of the second half of the Neolithic (2400-1800 cal BC), some elements typical of the Subneolithic ceramics appeared (e.g., knot and plait impressions), while the majority of the HW could also be dated back to the post-CWC period. The relations between the CWC livestock breeders and the local hunters-gatherers could have been hostile due to huge differences in culture, social structure, customs, ideology, and religion. To date, we do not have any evidence of violence between those groups in the East Baltic, however, mass graves in Central Europe, e.g., Eulau and Koszyce (Haak et al. 2008; Konopka et al. 2016) indicate that in the CWC military conflicts with autochtonous communities undoubtedly took place. CONCLUSION The CWC case demonstrates that, in the early 21st century, genetics took a big step forward and began to alter archaeological interpretations. At present geneticists inform archaeologists that archaeological cultures, at least some of them, coincided with the prehistoric populations in which people actively exchanged genes. Such archaeological cultures correspond to social units sharing common ideology, religion, identity, language, and social structure, however, not necessarily having common economy and a highly homogeneous material culture. Currently it is clear that the CWC phenomenon originated in Europe due to the migration of the steppe nomads; nonetheless, it is important to explain the Yamnaya-CWC transformation. However, it does not seem to be possible to do that by a single model (e.g., Kristiansen et al. 2017). The steppe people migrated to regions with a different climate and landscape and encountered local communities with different economies and different social structures. It is obvious that their behaviour under such different conditions could not have been the same everywhere. The East Baltic region, which was rich in forests and not densely populated, offered them totally different opportunities of living than the more densely populated and relatively deforested agricultural regions of Central Europe or Southern Scandinavia. In the Alps, the CWC people learned to grow crops and to build pile dwellings from the local people of the Neolithic cultures. In the Netherlands, they also started growing crops and simultaneously made use of rich seaside resources, fishing, and waterfowl hunting. At Lubāns Lake in Latvia, they seem to have also started fishing and settled down in a way the Subneolithic hunters-gatherers met by them were living. Nevertheless, in the larger part of the East Baltic region, they retained a nomadic way of life and bred livestock, although they began burying their dead in a different way than in the steppe or elsewhere in Europe, i.e. without the burial mounds. The consequences of the CWC phenomenon for the further demographic and cultural development were not the same in different regions. In Northeast Lithuania, as well as in Latvia, the CWC represents just an episode, after which we can see hunters-gatherers returning and continuing the tradition of the Subneolithic pottery production. The process of Indo-Europeanisation of Northeast Lithuanian happened later, possibly simultaneously with the immigration of the Trzciniec culture people. In Western, Southern, and Central Lithuania, the CWC migrants and the diseases brought with them exterminated the local population or made them leave, and as a consequence they possibly contributed to the end of the numerous RC settlements on the Curonian Spit around 2500 cal BC. In Northwest Russia, Finland, Estonia, and even Latvia, the CWC people failed to retain their culture, and possibly their language as well. Therefore, by the end of the CWC period, the territory of Lithuania became the northern border zone of the Indo-European Europe. The CWC phenomenon cannot be overestimated: the prehistory of Indo-European Europe begins with this archaeological culture.