deported. The peaceful development of archaeological investigations was reinstated very slowly. Two academically educated specialists—E. Šnore and L. Vankina—were the first to begin new archaeological investigations. Then new enthusiasts entered the field of Latvian archaeology—among them J. Graudonis, Ē. Mugurēvičs, and Ā. Stubavs.

The three phases of Soviet, or postwar, Latvian archaeology were outlined by Ē. Mugurēvics (1999). New excavation projects were realized by archaeologists during the first phase. The archaeologists of the Institute of History of Latvia were very active during the 1950s and 1960s. Extensive excavation works were carried out under the guidance of Latvian archaeologists of the first generation E. Šnore and E. Brīvkalne at the Letgallian hillfort Asote and the Semigallian hillfort of Tērvete. The Lettgallian cemetery of the tenth through the thirteenth centuries Pildas Nukši was excavated. During this phase archaeological materials—the results of excavations and typological studies, as well as reports of more serious investigations—were published in the new periodical of Latvian Archaeology: Arheoloģija un Etnogrāfija (Archaeology and Ethnography) between 1959 and 1998.

The second phase of the third period (1960– 1974) was marked by long-term, large-scale excavations in the flooded zones at hydro-power stations at Plaviņas and Rīga and along the middle and upper flow of the river Daugava. Attention was directed to publishing the results of excavations at the hillfort Asote (1961), the medieval economic contacts of the Lettgallians and the Slavs (1965), the late Bronze Age in Latvia (1967), and the Cloth of the Lettgallians (1970). Intensive work at the Lake Āraiši fortress discovered much of the inhabited area with well-preserved remains of timber dwellings and a large number of wooden artifacts. Excavations of complexes at Stone Age monuments in the Lake Lubāna Wetland and at Zvejnieki on the bank of Lake Burtnieki uncovered the need for further investigation of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and early-Bronze Age periods of Latvia. Interdisciplinary studies (paleocarpology, palinology, radiocarbon dating, etc.) were used. A monograph of the Sarnate peat bog settlement was published (1970). It was the first research work about the Neolithic period in the littoral of the Litorina sea. The results of these and other archaeological discoveries were published in the Archaeology of Latvia (1974), written by eleven authors, the first popular publication about archaeological investigations in Latvia. The work detailed the elaborate typology and chronology of artifacts and monuments, reconstructions of buildings and hillforts, economy, ideology, and ethnogenesis of native people.

During the third phase of the postwar investigations (1975–1989) work concentrated in the flooded zone of the Daugavpils hydro-station along the upper part of the Daugava River (1982–1987). Long-term protective excavations were carried out in the Naujiena stone castle and town (Dunaburg) of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Slutiški late-medieval cemetery of the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, and twenty other monuments. The conservation work on the Stone Age settlements in large areas of the Lake Lubāna Wetland was duplicated in the Zvidze, Kvāpāni, Sūļagals, and Iča settlements. New evidence of the transformation from a hunter-gatherer society to one of farming and stock breeding were found. An intensification in the publication of monographs was marked during this term. Two monographs about the Lake Lubāna Wetland settlements (Loze 1979; 1988) and one about the Stone Age burial field in Zvejnieki (Zagorskis 1987) were published. Three monographs about the Bronze Age by Graudonis and Vasks and several on the Middle Ages (Mugurevics; Šnore; and Zariņa), as well as a book on early medieval coins (Berga) added to the number of publications.

The fourth period of archaeological investigation began during yet another new political situation after the restoration of the Republic of Latvia. The independent development of archaeological investigations prompted wider interest in the publication and interpretation of basic materials, which were in the Funds of Museums in Latvia for a long time. The catalog The Stone Age Lake Lubāna Collection (1999) contained more than 3,000 drawings of bone and antler