Lake Biržulis is a lake in the

Telšiai District Telšiai (; Samogitian: ''Telšē'') is a city in Lithuania with about 21,499 inhabitants. It is the capital of Telšiai County and Samogitia region, and it is located on the shores of Lake Mastis. Telšiai is one of the oldest cities in Lithu ...

of western

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. It has a maximum length in the north-south direction of 3.6 km. The lake has two islands, Spiginas and Duonkalnis, which have yielded

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

and

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

burials including the Mesolithic grave of the "Duonkalnis shaman".

Archaeology

The island site of Spiginas have yielded four burials dating from 7780 BP to 4080 BP. The grave pits were shallow and filled with red

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

, and yielded grave goods of perforated pendants of

elk The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...

and

boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is no ...

teeth. The island site of Duonkalnis (also Donkalnis) has yielded around 14 graves. The most remarkable of these is the double grave of the Duonkalnis "shaman". A young man was buried together with a woman in a grave sprinkled with red ochre beside a ritual hearth also sprinkled with ochre. His body was adorned with 57 amulets including

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

teeth strung across his head and wild boar tusks on each of his eyes. The body is now on display in the Archaeology section of the

National Museum of Lithuania The National Museum of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos nacionalinis muziejus), established in 1952, is a state-sponsored historical museum that encompasses several significant structures and a wide collection of written materials and artifacts. It also or ...

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biržulis Lakes of Lithuania Archaeological sites in Lithuania Prehistoric Lithuania