Rinnukalns, a Neolithic freshwater shell midden site in northern Latvia and its significance for cultural development of the Eastern Baltic Stone Age

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Rinnukalns, on the River Salaca at the mouth of Lake Burtnieks in northern Latvia, is the only well-stratified Stone Age shell midden in the East Baltic. It was discovered in the 1870s and excavated several times in subsequent decades, but was overshadowed more recently by the excavation of settlement layers and >300 prehistoric burials at nearby Zvejnieki. Rinnukalns was almost forgotten when prehistoric artefacts were discovered during a brief underwater survey in 2009. In 2011, a geophysical survey allowed us to lay out small trenches; a short excavation proved the survival of intact midden deposits, and provided samples for malacozoological, archaeozoological, isotopic and 14C analyses. Faunal and human remains from the 19th-century excavations were located and sampled.This application covers the excavation and scientific analysis of remaining midden deposits, allowing us to address research questions arising from earlier interventions at Rinnukalns, by: - Reconstructing site formation processes, integrating earlier data with detailed geophysical prospection, coring and palaeoenvironmental analyses, and fine-scale excavations, to reveal the history of occupation (e.g. vertical and horizontal stratigraphy, pre-midden human activity, timing of burials relative to domestic activity)- Using the exceptional preservation conditions for fish and shellfish at Rinnukalns to understand in detail the exploitation of different aquatic species (e.g. seasonality, selectivity, capture methods, processing and discard patterns), through archaeozoological and isotopic analyses- Using 14C and stable isotope signatures as tracers of human diet and mobility, quantifying variability in freshwater reservoir effects and stable isotopes within and between aquatic species from different habitats and ecological niches, and using archaeobotanical and isotopic analyses of plant remains to understand the dietary significance of wild plant foods - Using human remains from Rinnukalns, in comparison to contemporaneous burials at Zvejnieki and Tamula in Estonia, as a source of information on Neolithic society, by recording bone preservation and post-mortem changes, lesions due to trauma and/or pathologies, and differences in diet and mobility- Obtaining a detailed picture of seasonal scheduling and integration of food procurement and food production at Rinnukalns, to compare to other populations which had access to food production, but maintained an aquatic-dependent lifestyle- Investigating the practical use and socio-economic role of pottery by analysing absorbed lipids; the fine-grained stratigraphy of the midden offers the potential to link ceramics to seasonal processing of specific food resources. The results will be published in leading peer-reviewed journals; proceedings of a final workshop will be published as a monograph.