Archaeologia Baltica

Since 2010, several archaeological sites in Lithuania have been geomagnetically surveyed, as part of a German-Lithuanian cooperation project. Within the framework of this cooperation, the Ėgliškiai/Anduliai cemetery, the Taurapilis barrow site, Taurapilis and Opstainiai/Vilkyškiai (outer settlements), and Jakai/Sudmantai (the enclosure) have been investigated. In almost all the sites, features and structures were detected that enable us to make some initial statements about the structure and dimensions of the archaeological monuments. For some sites, the surveys also provided very precise and hitherto unknown information about the context of the settlement. These new results show clearly the potential of non-invasive, especially geomagnetic, methods for archaeological purposes. However, it should be admitted that only a combination of several methods and tools enables a maximum level of knowledge and information on the scientific value and potential of archaeological sites and landscapes. The task for the coming years must therefore focus on the application and combination of further noninvasive geophysical (ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity) and remote sensing methods in archaeological surveys.

The article summarises new investigations at the famous site of Linkuhnen and its material culture, which was excavated between 1928 and 1939, but never really published. The surviving finds from the cemetery, together with information collected from diverse archival sources, show a picture of a burial ground which was probably used from the second to the 11th century. The richness and the international references of the local material culture during the Viking Age point to an important role of the site in the network of trade and communication between the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

The micro-region of the lower reaches of the River Šventoji in the Roman Iron Age falls into the range of flat cemeteries surrounded by stone circles. The territory to the north of the River Šventoji is considered the periphery of this culture, which has characteristic burial rites, one of which is the absence of stone circles. This peripheral culture in the territory of Latvia is described by using the results of the Mazkatuži (Rucava parish) cemetery investigations. The surviving research material and archival data about artefacts found in the lower reaches of the River Šventoji allow us to review and revise the data about burial rites and settlement structures in Kurzeme during the Roman Iron Age.

The author discusses a few examples of artefacts that testify to the contacts between the Balts living in Samland (the Sambian Peninsula) and in the Memelkultur area during the Roman Iron Age. This data was collected from notes and drawings made by Herbert Jankuhn, Marta Schmiedehelm and Kurt Voigtmann. Archival data gives us a chance to interpret similarities in the fashion of wearing of necklaces of similar composition, or rings with similar nodular decoration during the Early Roman Period. The Memelkultur-style brooches found in Samland, and similar status symbols, such as snake-head rings, testify to the strong relations between the two Balt coastal areas during the Late Roman Period.

Disc brooches of Dollkeim-Kovrovo culture attributed to the Early Roman Period are characterised by the complicated archaeological context. Distant analogies in Roman disc brooches, the different morphology and technique leave open the question of their origin. This article proposes an analysis based on the verification of archival data, publications and surviving archaeological items from the collection of the former Prussia-Museum.

The set of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic artefacts from Aukštumala consists exclusively of flint manufactured items. This paper presents exhaustive data on studies of the flint artefacts, and on the reconstruction of their manufacture technique, based on observable characteristics of their manufacture. The functions of the artefacts found in the settlements were established at the Archaeological Material Research Laboratory at Klaipėda University, by means of an Olympus SZX16 microscope, and simultaneously their typology and the chronology of individual items were revised.

In 2004, an archaeological survey was carried out in Aukštumala upland bog (in the Šilutė district in western Lithuania), during which the remains of settlements from the Late Palaeolithic and Middle Mesolithic periods were discovered. These were the first sites from the Late Glacial and Early Holocene periods to be found in the lower reaches of the River Nemunas. The chronology and topography of the sites helped to identify the chronology of the area’s population, and to localise the natural environment in which the people of these periods lived. Based on the typology of the discovered artefacts, manufactured flint items in the Palaeolithic settlement were identified as being close to Late Arensburgian culture, and those of the Middle Mesolithic to Maglemosian or Early Nemunas culture.