and castle (thirteenth–seventeenth centuries), and the Salaspils stone castle of the Livonian order (thirteenth–seventeenth centuries). Stubavs was the foremost specialist in the classification and elaboration of the main types of Latvian hillforts.

Professor Dr. Eduards Šturms (1895–1959) studied at the State University in Rīga and at Koenigsberg. Šturms was the pioneer of systematic investigations of Stone and Bronze Age monuments in Latvia (1927–1940, 1943), including the Sārnate peat bog settlement, Pūrciems dune dwellings on the littoral of the Litorina sea, an Iča settlement in the Lake Lubāna wetland, and Rēznas barrows of the Bronze Age. At the end of World War II Šturms emigrated to West Germany. He led the Latvian Department of the Institute of Investigations of Baltic States from 1953 to 1955 and was guest professor at the University of Bonn from 1955 to 1959 and a corresponding member of the deutsches archäologisches institut (German Archaeological Institute) from 1954 to 1959.

Vladislavs Urtāns (1921–1989) received his doctorate in history at the State University in Rīga. Arrested and deported to Siberia by Soviet political bodies in 1941, Urtāns returned to Rīga in 1946, and graduated from the State University in 1949. Urtāns was a researcher in the Archaeology Department at the Museum of the History of Latvia from 1947 to 1950 and at the Museum of History and Art in Madona from 1951 to 1958 and senior researcher at the Museum of the History of Latvia from 1958 to 1976. Specializing in the archaeology of the Iron and Viking Ages, Urtāns was one of the best specialists of typology studies of the Iron Age of Latvia. He led large-scale excavations in the flooded zones of the Pļaviņas and Rīga hydro-stations, and at the Daugmale, Aizkraukle, and Madalāni hillforts of the tenth through the twelfth centuries (1966–1987).

Lūcija Vankina (1908–1989) received a doctorate in history at the State University in Rīga and then became head of the Department of Archaeology of the Museum of the History of Rīga from 1946 to 1986. Vankina specialized in the Stone Age Archaeology of Latvia and excavated at the Sārnate wetland settlement from 1949 to 1959.

Anna Zariņa (1921– ) studied at the Latvian Academy of Agriculture. Zariņa is a pioneer and a primary specialist in the investigation and reconstruction of the archaeological textiles of the ancient Livs and Letgallians. She led large-scale excavations in the flooded zones of the Pļaviņas, Rīga, and Daugavpils hydro-stations from 1963 to 1986.

Archaeological Monuments

Latvian hillforts are fortifications on hills that had special wooden palisade defensive systems and a high rampart and ditches on one side. Dwellings and buildings for special crafts were located inside the plateau and the outer fort. Chronologically hillforts can be dated to a wide period, from the beginning of the first millennium b.c. until the tenth through thirteenth centuries a.d. A topographic survey of these forts was done by E. Brastiņš in the 1920s and the work was continued by specialists from the State Inspection of Monument Protection beginning in 1950 under the guidance of J.T. Urtāns.

Abora is the main permanent settlement of the Late Neolithic Corded Ware Culture (CWC) in the Lake Lubāna Wetland of Latvia, where remains of material culture from 4490 to 3770 b.p. were preserved in peat. The wooden dwelling constructions, fishing devices, and some burials of flexed individuals of the CWC were discovered between 1964 and 1965 and in 1970 and 1971. Abora is the main location where amber is processed in present-day Latvia. From there amber artifacts and ornaments were exchanged across Eastern Europe—in the basins of the Volga and Dnieper Rivers (4490–3770 b.p.). Abora is the main source of information on the subsistence strategies of CWC people in Latvia, who were hunter-gatherers, and there is evidence of farming and stock breeding.

Āraiši Lake Fortress is a Viking Age fortress on an island on the Āraiši Lake in eastern Latvia, discovered by Count C.G. Sieverss in 1876 and excavated by Latvian archaeologist Jānis Apals from 1965 to 1969 and from 1975 to 1979. The fortress was the subject of extensive discussions as to whether it was a pile dwelling in the lake