Archaeologia Baltica

In the mid-1990s the finds from the West Balt Circle, whose peoples could be identified as the Aestii of Tacitus, included only ten swords dating back to the Roman Period. Excavations conducted in the following years and the retrieved part of the Prussia Museum in Königsberg, as well as numerous other archive materials, have not significantly increased this number. Therefore, it must be assumed that the Aestii rarely used this weapon, regardless of its great appreciation by other barbarians. This might be presumed to have been related to the specific techniques of mounted combat, in which, apart from spears, axes and long battle-knives were used.

Three vast areas in northern Europe during the Roman Period are known for their people’s development of a distinctive viewpoint regarding the riding horse that was reflected in sacrificial rites (north Germany; the Jutland Peninsula; Zealand, Funen, other Baltic Sea islands, as well as southern Scandinavia) and burial rites (Dollkeim-Kovrovo, Sudovian, West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave cultures, and, in part, the Lower Nemunas and Bogaczewo cultures). The custom at the end of the second century and in the third century to bury a riding horse (usually only the horse’s head, head and legs, or individual teeth) with armed men was especially distinct in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture area. This burial rite feature distinguishes the mentioned cultural unit (Aistians) area from the communities of other Balts who lived in current Lithuanian territory. The burial rite features that had developed in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture area illustrate the warriors’ hierarchy and the military’s dependency on the society’s nobility that already existed in the Roman Period. These social structure features link the West Balt communities with the northern Germanic peoples. West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture was the northernmost barbaricum territory in which riding horses were so often buried with people.

The author shows traces of the influence on the Baltic shafted weapon from the territory of Poland (Bogaczewo Culture, Sudovian Culture). These cultures present completely different views of the shafted weapon. In the former, the “Przeworsk” cultural impact prevailed, in the latter the Lithuanian influence is noticeable.

Thorsberg has revealed a large amount of Roman originals and Germanic copies as regards weaponry and status symbols of third-century Germanic elites. The weaponry of Thorsberg is ideal material to analyse the mechanisms of contacts between Barbarian societies and the so-called “advanced civilizations”. This concerns craftsmanship, signs of power and the choice of different precious materials.

Due to the extraordinary find preservations in Nydam mose, Southern Jutland, Denmark, larger parts of quivers from organic material have survived as very rare objects from the first millennium AD. Different quiver types and constructions from two different offerings in the fourth century AD are presented and are used as the background for some general remarks on remains of quivers and on archers of the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period.

In this article, some new approaches to Taurapilis prehistoric site, situated in the Utena district in Lithuania, are proposed. As a projection of a taurus horn on the ground in a water form, Lake Tauragnas was the principal factor shaping the particular prehistoric space and determining its status. In this way also, the origins of the Taurapilis Central Place, dated to the fifth or sixth centuries, are explained.

The authors recall their reconstruction of the Wielbark Culture cemetery at Krosno grave 27 furnishing. One of the most interesting elements in the grave is a boat-shaped fitting, probably the pommel of a sword typical of Scandinavia. The chronology of the grave corresponds to the dating of such boat-shaped pommels.

The find of a fragment of a single-edged sword at the Szurpiły settlement near Suwałki (northeastern Poland) is the main subject of the paper. An attempt to establish the uncertain find circumstances is made, and its meaning for chronological and cultural research of the Suwałki region in the Early Roman Period is considered.

The article concerns the fork-like artefact found in grave 22 at Gurjevsk (formerly Trausitten). Based on Herbert Jankuhn’s files, it had seemed to be a part of a Roman helmet, but after finding it in the Prussia Collection (nowadays in Berlin) it seems to be of quite modern origin (a musket rest?).

A warrior from Baitai grave 23 was equipped with a spear, socketed axe, scythe, fragment of knife and a belt. Such a set of grave goods was typical but not entirely standard in west Lithuanian graves. The author discusses how, through many possible variations of male grave goods, we could recognize the personal position of the dead in a group of other armed men.