Locations | Stone Dead

Stone Dead focuses on lithic assemblages from Europe’s largest Mesolithic burial grounds: Zvejnieki (Latvia) and Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (Karelia) c. 7500-4000 cal BC.

Map focusing on east Baltic states, Finland and western Russia showing study sites. — Stone Dead's primary study locations at Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (Karelia) and Zvejnieki (Latvia).

Located in broadly comparable environments with a period of contemporaneous burial activity, these case studies have been chosen because of their size, excellent preservation and long research histories, enabling us to track relationships between different types of stone tools, other grave objects and human bioarchaeological data between single burials/sites, across space/time.

A schematic plan of the Mesolithic site at Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (Karelia), flanked by an illustration of a grave and its contents. — A schematic showing the Mesolithic site at Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (left); An illustration of an excavated inhumation with details of grave contents (right).

A schematic plan of the Mesolithic site at Zvejnieki (Latvia), flanked by an illustration of a grave and its contents. — A schematic showing the Mesolithic site at Zvejnieki (left); An illustration of an excavated inhumation with details of grave contents (right).