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The project will resume the earlier research of bone and antler working (ESF grants nos 2907 and 4203, bone artefacts of the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages), but it will be focused on the Bronze Age. Estonian finds in this project will be complemented with contemporaneous finds from other Baltic countries. The aim of the project is to analyse and compare bone and antler artefacts from the Bronze Age fortified settlements of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The aim of analysis is to study the development of artefact types and manufacturing technologies, bone-working techniques, traces of making and wear on artefacts; to investigate whether and which artefacts were made by a specialised bone worker, or whether the artefacts were mainly made by the user; to study who were the owners of bone artefacts, and the meaning and importance of bone artefacts in the Bronze Age society. The use of different materials (bone, antler) and bones of different species will be investigated, and the material used to make bone artefacts will be compared with faunal remains from the site. The research of the development of bone working as an important branch of handicrafts in Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian fortified settlements of the Bronze Age, as well as the investigation of faunal remains from these sites, improve our knowledge about the Bronze Age economy and society on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. |