24 Facts About Jonas Puzinas

Jonas Puzinas was a Lithuanian archaeologist and specialist on the prehistory of Lithuania.

Jonas Puzinas belonged to the first generation of Lithuanian scholars who matured in independent Lithuania.

Jonas Puzinas was the first scientifically trained archaeologist of Lithuania and he laid the foundations, including some of the basic terminology and periodization, for future archaeological studies.

Jonas Puzinas studied under Ernst Wahle, who had excavated in Latvia and was familiar with Baltic archaeology.

Jonas Puzinas became director of Kaunas City Museum, where he briefly worked as a student.

Jonas Puzinas inherited a museum that more closely resembled a storage space of old artifacts than a modern museum.

Jonas Puzinas became an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities of Vytautas Magnus University.

Jonas Puzinas was one of the few professors at the faculty who received proper education in their field of study.

Jonas Puzinas lectured on 20 topics, including broad topics, such as Indo-Europeans, vikings, prehistory of Europe.

When Vytautas the Great War Museum was opened in 1936, Jonas Puzinas developed its prehistory exhibition based on the modern museum practices.

Jonas Puzinas participated in 27 archaeological excavations, mostly burials, but showed no great enthusiasm for field work, often supervising the excavations only on paper.

Jonas Puzinas organized obtained data and exhibits, visited museums abroad, attended international archaeological conventions, published articles on prehistory and archaeology in Lithuanian press and Lietuviskoji enciklopedija, the first encyclopaedia in Lithuanian.

Jonas Puzinas made presentations to schoolchildren to popularize the field.

The work featured a large number of new scientific terms in Lithuanian language that Jonas Puzinas created in collaboration with linguist Antanas Salys.

Jonas Puzinas managed to establish a separate the Department of Archaeology, which he chaired.

In July 1944, fearing the second Soviet occupation, Jonas Puzinas retreated to Germany where he taught at the Baltic University in Pinneberg near Hamburg in West Germany.

Jonas Puzinas was the university rector from April 1948 to September 1949.

In 1949, as a displaced person, Jonas Puzinas moved to Philadelphia, United States.

Jonas Puzinas worked various jobs, but joined activities of Lithuanian diaspora.

Jonas Puzinas wrote reviews of works published, often by his former students, in Soviet Lithuania.

Jonas Puzinas started writing a broad work on prehistory of Lithuania, but managed to finish only a few sections.

In 1974, Jonas Puzinas moved to the Chicago Lawn neighborhood of Chicago, where he died in 1978.

Back in Lithuania, Jonas Puzinas' published works were marginalized and his name censored as his biography did not fit Soviet needs.

Jonas Puzinas's contributions were recognized after Lithuania regained independence in 1990.