Vytenis PodėnasLithuanian Institute of History · Department of Archaeology
Vytenis Podėnas
PhD
About
17
Publications
2,611
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64
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I'm a younger researcher at Lithuanian Institute of History, focusing on the southeastern Baltic Bronze Age - Roman Iron Age archaeology. Lately, I've been working on 14C dating, prehistoric diet, metallurgy and economy.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
July 2015 - June 2019
National Museum of Lithuania
Position
- sen. museologist
Education
October 2016 - September 2020
September 2014 - June 2016
September 2012 - February 2013
Publications
Publications (17)
The SE Baltic Bronze Age is characterized by a lack of indigenous metalwork traditions as it had been a time when metal finds were predominantly imported or were cast locally, but in foreign styles. This paper analyses the bronze casting remains found in the SE Baltic and discusses the role of these production sites within a wider European network....
The emergence of hilltop settlements presents a pattern of the first enclosed sites that reflect economic development in several regions within the Southeastern Baltic Bronze Age. This novelty reflects increasing social complexity, differentiating economic relations, as well as rising tension in the region. The phenomenon has received a great deal...
How fortifications emerged in the east Baltic is a recurring theme of discussions throughout their research history, and it has lately been studied even more due to new data from different projects. Our current knowledge allows us to propose a detailed classification of the earliest defensive systems that were established in the Late Bronze Age, wh...
The economic model of the Lithuanian Late Bronze Age (1100–500 cal BC) has long been based on zooarchaeological collections from unstratified, multi-period settlements, which have provided an unreliable understanding of animal husbandry and the role of fishing and hunting. The opportunity to re-evaluate the previously proposed dietary and subsisten...
The study of pottery production is a further step towards understanding the social significance of both stylistic and material patterns. The focus of this paper is on the latter aspect: we will analyse and discuss similarities and differences among LBA groups of eastern Baltic pottery, as well as view pottery as a communication medium. Fortified se...
In this paper, we present the main results of interdisciplinary project that allowed us to formulate a new perspective on the economy of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Baltic region. New excavations at the Late Bronze Age fortified settlements of Garniai 1 (Utena district municipality) and Mineikiškės (Zarasai district municipality) lead us to...
In this article, we present archeometallurgical studies of Bronze Age metalwork in Lithuania. Situated on the Eastern Baltic region, Lithuania belongs to the geographical area, which is far away from any metal sources, that have been exploited in the Bronze Age. Yet, the local population required bronze artefacts and metal supply as much as its nei...
Fortified settlements in the Eastern Baltic 1100–400 cal BC. Doctoral thesis in Lithuanian.
The aim of this thesis is to determine the timing of the emergence of early fortified settlements, the process of their spread in the Eastern Baltic, and the reasons for the changes in the behaviour of the communities between 1100 and 400 cal BC. The thesi...
Call for papers for session #354 'Hidden hillforts'. The importance of archival sources for future research on fortifications.
28th EAA Annual Meeting in Budapest, Hungary, 31 August - 3 September 2022
Rec.: Manvydas Vitkūnas, Gintautas Zabiela. Baltų piliakalniai: nežinomas paveldas. Vilnius: Lietuvos archeologijos draugija, 2017, 88 p.
This article explores the Late Bronze Age agrarian intensification in the south-east Baltic. In recent years several studies have illustrated that to date there is no solid evidence on Neolithic farming and that the agricultural history of the region was probably distinctly different in comparison to other parts of northern Europe. The recently exc...
During the Roman period, a rapid economic and social development of the Eastern Baltic region included the Balts in the newly formed interregional system of contacts, thus leading to the spread of new technologies and their distinctive development. The metal industry replaced dominant bone-antler and stone artefacts in archaeological sites. Alongsi...
The Garniai I Hillfort in northeastern Lithuania was occupied from the Bronze Age during the Lithuanian Late Bronze and again disturbed during the Modern Era. The local geomorphic landscape of the site was formed by Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene glaciation and sedimentation, the majority of which predated the original occupation by millennia. T...
The finds of the colour metallurgy (crucibles, hearth, cast-shapes for ring-shaped articles, and other technical ceramics) detected in Narkūnai Great Mound have so far attracted attention of many researchers. Recently there were discussions due to the artifacts
without clear signs of exposure to heat, (Čivilytė 2014, Podėnas, etc., 2016) and, for t...
What was the role of the East Baltic region in Bronze Age processes of moving metal, trade and societal development? Elucidating this picture has been one of the most important objectives for scholars examining the region’s archaeological sites. A representative lower cultural horizon of the Narkūnai ‘Didysis’ hillfort and results of its archaeolog...
This article presents an investigation of the classification, chronology, production, and usage of the technical ceramics from the ‘Didysis’ Narkūnai Hillfort (Utena District, Leliūnai Eldership). An attempt to resolve the problem of classifying vessels as miniature cups or crucibles was made using XRF, microchemical qualitative, SEM/EDX, and x-rad...
The article presents a classification of the pottery dated to PIII–B2/C1 and a spatial analysis of the pottery, bone, and metal artefacts found at the Narkūnai archaeological complex (Utena District, Leliūnai Eldership). First, a re-examination of Narkūnai’s prehistoric chronology was made using typological studies. Second, on the basis of 14 879 a...
Projects
Project (1)
Last several years of archaeological research have illustrated that economic development of the East Baltic was distinctly different from the rest of northern Europe. New evidence from enclosed Bronze Age settlements in Lithuania indicates the existence of complex economic processes which can no longer be explained using the obsolete economic models focused on slash-and-burn and shifting agriculture. We suggest that a new systematic interdisciplinary research would bring us closer to understanding LBA economy, its form and distinctiveness within the broader European Bronze Age context. This project aims to examine the effects of lagging agricultural advancements, swift appearance metallurgy, and the emergence of enclosed settlement network on the development of E Baltic Bronze Age communities and how this affected inter-regional and intra-regional communication networks.
