Vykintas Vaitkevičius- PhD
- Research Professor at Klaipėda University
Vykintas Vaitkevičius
- PhD
- Research Professor at Klaipėda University
About
54
Publications
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Introduction
My research interests: archaeology of Baltic religion, pre-Christian sacred sites, landscape archaeology (with an emphasis on the sacredness), symbols, Lithuanian indigenous culture, archaeology of modern conflicts, heritage communication, digital humanities, and interdisciplinary research methods
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
Publications
Publications (54)
The aim of this work is to examine various scientific information, to classify the Balts’ sacred places in Lithuania according to type, to point out the main types and groups of sacred places, and moreover, to analyse their religous and historic contexts.
The Balts’ sacred places are examined systemically: they are examined typologically, according...
The paper focuses on the swastika, artefacts of antler, wood, metal and clay marked with the swastika, and swastika-shaped items from the 13th and 14th centuries in the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania. An answer is sought to the question what the swastika, a universal sign and symbol, represented in ancient Lithuanian culture and religion, and what kinds...
Archaeology and material cultural heritage enjoys a particular status as a form of heritage that, capturing the public imagination, has become the locus for the expression and negotiation of regional, national, and intra-national cultural identities. One important question is: why and how do contemporary people engage with archaeological heritage o...
This article addresses the current stage of research on Lithuania’s ancient sacred places. Numerous examples and discussions
prove that these are cases for cross-disciplinary investigation. Although they are different, all the geographical, archaeological, linguistic and folklore aspects are important, and urgently require careful consideration, bo...
The article discusses letters written by the participants of the Lithuanian anti-Soviet armed resistance to their family members, loved ones, comrades-in-arms, contact persons, supporters, as well as provocateurs and Soviet collaborators. This is the first attempt at covering this unique part of the documentary heritage of the partisan war, which h...
The article is dedicated to the Selonian sacred path, or trail, established and opened on 25 August 2024, in Gražutė Regional Park, Lūžai Forest near Antalieptė (Zarasai d.). Compared to other discovery trails in Lithuania, this sacred path is unique not only in its thematic approach. The carefully selected Baltic heritage sites included in this tr...
Eighty years have passed since the start of the second Soviet occupation and the beginning of the partisan war in Lithuania. Since the partisans viewed their struggle differently than later historians did, this article aims to present historiography
and then, based on partisan sources and other data, to provide the perspective of the freedom fighte...
This article focuses on Salaitė, a location in the village of Bajorai (Kietaviškės elderate, Elektrenai municipality), where the Institute of Baltic Region History and Archaeology of Klaipeda University conducted expeditions in collaboration with the
Kaiśiadorys Museum and other institutions from 2006-2016 and in 2018. These expeditions collected a...
So far, the Kaunas Ažuolynas (oak forest) – a 60.83-hectare area, a
forest island ranging from 70 to 320 years in age but located within
a modern city – has been considered an exceptional natural value,
an important area for habitat protection. This article examines it for
the first time from a historical perspective, revealing little-known
context...
In Lithuania and the neighbouring countries of Poland, Belarus, Russia, Estonia and Latvia, the tradition of antler ornamentation dates from the 13th and 14th centuries. Historiography on the subject is sparse, and there have been no new comprehensive studies since the publication of Peter Paulsen’s monograph Axt und Kreuz in Nord- und Osteuropa (B...
The article is dedicated to extraordinarily shaped stones with special marks that we can often see standing and even more often – erected in the yards of houses, near museums, or by the roadside. We describe the experience of seeing them as astonishment and it is a very deep feeling that arises from prehistoric times, typical of the stones from the...
This study will examine unique monuments of the Baltic religion consisting of 231 stones with impressions reminiscent of human and/or animal footprints recorded in Lithuania. Data are drawn from archaeology, linguistics, folklore, ethnology, and history related to these stones. Footprint stones are autonomous natural holy places that rarely belong...
This article returns to the legendary part of the second and third redactions of the Lithuanian Chronicles and the works of Motiejus Strijkovskis, written in the second half of the 16th century, which raised the question of Šventaragis’, duke of Lithuania,
Samogitia, Naugardukas and Ruthenia, place in the genealogy of legendary dukes (descendants o...
As digital tools develop and become more openly available, not only archaeologists but also other groups that have an interest in archaeological heritage and the past are taking more and more digital tools and ideas into use in their research and practices. One such group with particular interests in archaeological heritage is hobbyist metal detect...
The book, based on years of research experience, is an original and currently the most up-to-date account of the sacred places of Baltic religion in Lithuania. It presents both the facts and also imaginative descriptions and new interpretations in an attempt to explain the purpose of those sacred places, to understand the ways they were used, and t...
The question of the naturalness of natural holy places raised by Prof. J. Urtāns has attracted the attention of researchers and has recently become part of international discussion. There are at least two aspects to discuss. The first relates to language (namely to the translation of native terms into English for common use); the second touches on...
Fords are unprotected and no longer visible in the cultural landscape of Lithuania, and historiography still only mentions them. the authors begin interdisciplinary research on fords: they define the term, locate the fords on the main Lithuanian rivers that are mentioned in the earliest (14th century) sources, and describe their position and appear...
The topic of the anti-Soviet resistance, and thereby the subject of the partisan war of 1944 to 1953, reestablished itself in the Lithuanian public discourse in 2005, when political and public discussions on the assessment of 8 and 9 May, resulting in Russian retaliation, arose <...>.
The image of the Lithuanian partisans as Forest Brothers, which...
The largest publication of archival documents on members of the Council of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle Movement, with an introduction and commentary.
Bernardas Gailius concluded that “in the years of the partisan
war, the democratic state of Lithuania could have been, and was, everywhere where there were people willing to have and to defend it”. It is in this sense – from the viewpoint of the underground state and the united partisan political and military organisation – this paper first introdu...
This study examines twenty-three springs of Eastern and Central Lithuania explored by the author and specialists of the Lithuanian Geological Survey. While six were active Christian sanctuaries, the remaining 17 were historically associated with Baltic religion and Catholic rituals. Investigations compared the mineralisation and hardness of the spr...
The partisan organization – the Movement of the Struggle for Freedom of Lithuania – had all the characteristics of an underground state: the institutes of government and law enforcement, military, communication, and economic structures, it developed political thought and anti-Soviet propaganda as well as publishing activities and foreign relations...
On 13 August 1949, in Užpelkiai Forest in northern Lithuania, on the border of the Grinkiškis and Baisogala rural districts in Radviliškis County, a battle by Lithuanian partisans that had a significant impact on the history of the Prisikėlimas (Resurrection) district took place. The leaders of the Lietuvos Laisvės Kovos Sąjūdis (Movement for the S...
This paper focuses on the predominating east-west orientation of Iron Age graves (5th century BC to the 13th century AD) and the reasons that could have caused the custom. Based on the data of Baltic mythology and their reflections in folklore, the authors argue that the mythological conception of grave orientation is closely related to the mytholo...
Modern conflict archaeology, investigating military conflicts of the 20th and early 21st centuries has diverged as a branch of archaeology at the turn of the millennium. Since then, the main trends and schools of research, i.e. the First and the Second World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War, Latin American military dictatorships, have beco...
The article is dedicated to the volunteers of the Lithuanian army fighting for revival of the Lithuanian state. It contributes to the history of freedom research in two ways. First, the historical narrative from 1918–1920 clearly testifies that fighting for freedom presents a social challenge and indicates a threat that has immense uniting power. S...
The article presents and summarizes the fieldwork data from 2011–2015, focusing on the custom of keeping nominal hives by the family members, still surviving in the family of Janina Arlauskytė-Garbenienė, born in Trumpainiai village (Laukuva parish, Šilalė district) and residing in Vašilėnai (Karklėnai parish, Kelmė district). In the 20th century,...
Tyrimo objektas – 1949 m. vasarį įvykęs Lietuvos partizanų vadų susitikimas, jo eiga. Analizuojami su susitikimu susiję duomenys, tikslinami istorinėje literatūroje esantys teiginiai ir keliama hipotezė, kad tiksli Lietuvos partizanų vadų susitikimo, priimtų dokumentų data konspiracijos sumetimais galėjo būti slepiama ir lemia šaltinių prieštaringu...
2012 m. pradėti kompleksiniai Lietuvos partizanų ryšininkų ir rėmėjų Sajų sodybos Balandiškyje ir 1949 m. vasarį vykusio visos Lietuvos partizanų vadų susitikimo (toliau – Susitikimo) tyrimai tęsiasi. Prielaidą, jog Susitikimo dalyviai tuo pačiu metu dirbo keliose vietose – Minaičių Ramovėje ir Balandiškio Vandenyne – patvirtino 1952 m. partizanų s...
1936 m. M. K. Čiurlionio muziejaus ekspedicijos (Viktoro Kuprevičiaus ir Balio Buračo) dienoraščio publikacija su iliustracijomis.
This paper presents new data describing the Holocene environmental history of the Briaunis palaeolake, Eastern Lithuania. Shortly before 9600 cal yr BP, sedimentation began in an oligotrophic deep-water basin, whereas the Early Holocene instability of the environmental regime caused the influx of detrital sediment into the basin. A birch forest dom...
Straipsnyje nagrinėjama, kaip Lietuvoje formavosi konceptualus požiūris į skaitmeninio kultūros paveldo vientiso turinio kūrimą. Pirmosios straipsnio dalies tema – nauja Lietuvos kultūros paveldo teisinės bazės paradigma ir jos finansavimo klausimai. Antroji dalis supažindina su patirtimi įgyvendinant Lietuvos nacionalinės Martyno Mažvydo bibliotek...
In 2012, the complex investigation of the Sajai homestead in Balandiškis (District of Radviliškis) began. In 1924, Lithuanian army volunteer Stanislovas Sajus (1895–1965) established the homestead. In the autumn of 1948, two partisan headquarters – “Ramovė” and “Vandenynas” of “Prisikėlimas” district appeared in Pašušvys region. In 1949, they becam...
The article presents instances in Lithuania of the wet sieving of archaeological layers (1983–2011), giving the method’s advantages and disadvantages and discussing the difficulties arising in such investigations, the possible ways of resolving them, and the special features of wet sieving archaeological layers compared to dry sieving. The authors...
A collection of proceedings from the third international seminar of the Delos Initiative, organized by Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Service (organization in charge of the system of protected natural areas in Finland), held in Anar/Aanaar/Inari in northern Finnish Lapland on 1–3 July 2010. This volume consists of six parts and describes many natur...
This work is aimed at critical investigation of the role of standards in the development of informational society and economy in general, and cultural heritage information infrastructures in particular. Using exploratory literature review and two case studies we attempt to shed light on the intricate link between data (resources), tools and service...
Archaeological monuments, particularly hill-forts and barrows, are often shrouded in place legends by local inhabitants. Oral tradition is highly important to archaeology, although this has not yet been properly recognized by the Lithuanian archaeologists. This paper presents and discusses the legend about Migonys hill-fort, recorded by Professor E...
During the initial analysis of national information systems lack of interoperability and standardization of historical geographical, biographical and chronological data was identified, the most important problems were named. The model of provision of historical geographical, chronological and biographical data within the information systems is aime...
The article deals with the sacred groves of the Balts in Lithuania andpresents the linguistic background, the historical documents from the 12th–18th century, the key folklore motifs of the topic, as well as selected examples of groves. The article also discusses possible relationships between pre-Christian religious traditions connected with the s...
In this article, some new approaches to Taurapilis prehistoric site, situated in the Utena district in Lithuania, are proposed. As a projection of a taunts horn on the ground in a water form, Lake Tauragnas was the principal factor shaping the particular prehistoric space and determining its status. In this way also, the origins of the Taurapilis C...
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Full version pdf avialable via: https://tautosmenta.lt/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Vaitkevicius_Vykintas/Vaitkevicius_Sventvietes_1998_Zemaitija.pdf
