Content:
New investigation methods have allowed archaeologists to extract more information from less excavated areas as well as fill in the gaps on various lacking knowledge on past populations’ behaviour, economy, spatial organization, defensive strategies, and everyday life. Even though, some questions might be addressed with the help of non-destructive methods, the tendency of lessening excavated areas inevitably provides new interpretational problems where large quantities of artefactual spatial data are required. In turn, a potential of bridging an emergent data gap could be addressed with old excavation reports that documented vast excavated areas in the hillforts. However, the documentation tendencies differed based on the timeline of the excavations, archaeologists’ readiness, and a level of taken precautions to ensure report data association with the artefacts that after all were stored in the museums.
The Paper reviews available spatial information in the old excavation reports from XX century Lithuania that dealt with hillforts from the Bronze Age up to the Roman period. It also aims to discuss the development of documentation tendencies and answer the question: have the good examples provided the impetus for other researchers to improve their own reports or were they isolated cases? Lastly, the paper discusses thoroughly the case of Narkūnai hillfort that was excavated in 1976–1978. The primary spatial analysis objective was the identification of formation processes of the archaeological record, however, several significant observations from the secondary analysis of archival sources also emerged. Based on comparative analysis of report data and artefacts stored in the museum, a fragment of a I–II cent. AD paleorelief was reconstructed as well as quick abandonment of the Northern building during the Late Bronze Age was identified.
Keywords:
Hillforts, Archival sources, Museums, Formation processes, Paleorelief, Behavioural Archaeology