The Transition of ideas and Northern Lithuania in the Roman period
ENWhen we speak about the transition of ideas between several archaeological cultures or the spread of ideas far in a given direction, we have in mind material objects which reflect a certain process of thinking during the creation of object forms. The production of tools and smaller weapons are determined by functional rather than aesthetic considerations. When decorations are created, there is less thought solely about function. Amulets and strings of beads are a good example of ornamentation which in the material sense apparently do not contribute anything to costume (they neither hold garments together nor offer other support), but to this day people still believe (perhaps less so, of course, in prehistoric times) that they have a certain "lucky" ornamentation. Thus, archaeological ornaments form a type of product group which lends itself best to analysis of what aesthetic ideas were dominant in a given region, of whence they originated (whether they were thought up by local craftsmen or imported from elsewhere). Of course, the expression of aesthetic ideas draws considerable significance from the type of technology the creator of the object was able or had the opportunity to use. We know very little of how people living in the territory of presentday Lithuania and Latvia adorned themselves in the Early Iron Age, because those areas had much smaller quantities of copper-smelting material than in the following Roman influence period. [Extract, p. 11]
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