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Between mighty hillforts: a multi-method study of Laukskola Bronze Age settlement pottery

Vanda Visocka Alise Gunnarssone Mārcis Kalniņš All authors (4)

https://doi.org/10.15181/ab.v28i0.2283

Pub. online: 29 Dec 2021 Type: Article

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 28 (2021), pp. 81–100

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a multi-method study of the Laukskola Late Bronze Age open

field settlement pottery assemblage. The aim of the study was to describe the technical and stylistic

aspects of Laukskola pottery, and their relationship with the nearby hillfort material. The production

tendencies and their role in the function of the pottery were also analysed. Macroscopic

analysis combined with ceramic petrography, reflective transformation imaging, and wavelength

dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy were conducted in the analysis of the pottery. Nearby

clay resources were surveyed and further analysed for provenance interpretations. The results of

the study show that Laukskola pottery was locally produced by using highly plastic sandy moraine

clay, tempered with granitic rock and quartzite. Stylistically, the pottery combined local and nonlocal

elements. The function corresponds with the visual parameters and choices for production.

Head-shield brooches of the Roman Iron Age from the Tarand cemeteries of the eastern Baltic

Maarja Lillak Marcus A. Roxburgh

https://doi.org/10.15181/ab.v28i0.2282

Pub. online: 29 Dec 2021 Type: Article

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 28 (2021), pp. 63–80

Abstract

This study is dedicated to the head-shield brooches from the tarand cemetery area in Estonia, Latvia

and lands west of the Izhora plateau. Its aim is to better understand their development through

a combined typological, compositional and chronological analysis and explore their social role

in the identity politics of the people wearing them. The compositional evaluation was supported

with portable X-ray florescence spectrometry (XRF), to improve our understanding of the metal

choices made by their ancient craftsmen.

The typological study suggests that one of the earliest brooches found in the tarand cemetery area

belongs to the Almgren 100 brooches, most of which have a semi-circular shield on the front part

of the bow, a multiple-piece spring, and a triangular foot. The evidence suggests that they emerged

in the 2nd century. Subsequently, a local form developed in the northeast part of the tarand cemetery

area towards the end of the century. This local type has a squared-off foot, a multiple-piece

spring construction, and a short semi-circular head-shield. Many were also tinned, meaning their

colour was deliberately changed to a shiny silvery-white. During the 3rd century, a further group

of locally produced head-shield brooches also emerged. They have a hinged mechanism, a knob,

and a decorative rib at the end of the foot.

These local brooches likely represented a regional style and aesthetic. They could have played a

visual role in connecting the wearer to their affiliated group, or played a part in a differing social

role within the society from which they came.

Essential changes in the composition of copper alloys reveal technological diversities in the transition from the Earliest Iron Age to the Early Roman period in Lithuania

Audronė Bliujienė Gediminas Petrauskas Jurga Bagdzevičienė All authors (5)

https://doi.org/10.15181/ab.v28i0.2281

Pub. online: 29 Dec 2021 Type: Article

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 28 (2021), pp. 39–62

Abstract

In the context of archaeometallurgical studies of copper alloys, it is relevant to record the essential

changes in the elemental composition of copper alloys that occur during changes in technology

and transitions in human history. This article presents the shift in the elemental composition of

copper alloy from bronze-based alloys to brass ones during essential changes in archaeological

material which happened at the turn of the Earliest Iron Age (500–1 BC) and the Early Roman

period, from the 1st century BC to the middle of the 1st century AD. As early as the 2nd and

1st centuries BC, in the Antique world and the Roman Empire and its provinces, brass was already

starting to partly replace bronze. Even if the Earliest Iron Age is the least knowable period

in Lithuanian prehistory, the few pieces of jewellery attributed to this period show the changes

in the composition of the copper alloy. The territorial growth of the Late Antique world and

internal contacts within the Barbaricum led to the expanding strength of commodities, including

raw materials, technologies, cultural ideas and ideological attitudes. Goods and ideas spread

throughout the vast barbarian lands, and eventually reached the forest zone of northeast Europe.

Sudden changes during the Early Roman period were first of all connected with the development

of settlement structure, and this has therefore made it possible to identify some major places of

the production of artefacts and partly changed directions of exchange. All this was accompanied

by the emergence of new jewellery types produced by skilled jewellers according to sophisticated

techniques. These changes are clearly visible in Early Roman period Lithuanian archaeological

material, including the elemental composition of copper alloys. The present article uses X-ray

fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry to investigate the composition of copper alloys. Radiography

was used to understand the construction of artefacts, and to assess the degree of their inner corrosion

and sophisticated manufacturing techniques. Solder samples were taken from the surfaces

of several finds, and were analysed by qualitative microchemical analysis.

New results on horse trappings from the Hunnic-period Carpathian Basin based on non-destructive archaeometric analyses

Réka Ágnes Piros Viktória Mozgai Bernadett Bajnóczi

https://doi.org/10.15181/ab.v28i0.2280

Pub. online: 29 Dec 2021 Type: Article

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 28 (2021), pp. 25–38

Abstract

Objects manufactured from pressed gold, gilded silver or copper alloy plates are characteristic assemblages

from the Late Hunnic period (5th century AD, 420/430). In this study, horse trappings

that belong to the ‘pressed gold plate horizon’ from three archaeological sites in the Carpathian

Basin (Léva, Nyíregyháza-Oros and Pécsüszög) were analysed non-destructively by using a handheld

X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. The main aims were to determine the chemical composition

and the gilding technique used, and to attempt to prove whether the groups in an assemblage

are from the same set. The results of the chemical analyses give us the opportunity to confirm

whether damaged or presumably lost objects of an assemblage were replaced or repaired. According

to the results obtained, the objects were manufactured from gold (Pécsüszög), gilded silver

(Nyíregyháza-Oros) or gilded unalloyed copper plates (Léva). Later, replacements can be distinguished

based on their chemical composition and manufacturing quality. Two types of gilding

were observed: fire gilding with the presence of mercury (Léva), and leaf gilding (Nyíregyháza-

Oros).

Non-destructive analyses of copper alloys and silver items from Voitenki. The recycling of metal in Cherniakhov culture

Mikhail V. Liubichev Oleksandr M. Buhay Erdmute Schultze

https://doi.org/10.15181/ab.v28i0.2279

Pub. online: 29 Dec 2021 Type: Article

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 28 (2021), pp. 8–24

Abstract

Brooches, belt buckles and other metal objects with a specific design are considered characteristic

of Cherniakhov culture. In contrast with well-known typologies, the metal composition of these

objects has rarely been investigated. Forty-four artefacts from the settlement and cemetery at

Voitenki (east Ukraine) were chosen for metal analysis. The fibulae selected, for example, consist

of crossbow tendril brooches, crossbow brooches with a closed catch-plate, brooches with a high

catch-plate, and other types. A total of 38 finds were made of non-ferrous metal; for six objects,

silver was presumed. The precise metal composition was determined by PIXE (particle-induced

X-ray emission) analysis. Based on this method, copper, bronze and brass could be determined

as material for the brooches and buckles. The bronze objects were divided into forged bronze and

cast bronze; furthermore, mixed material was detected. But these groups and subgroups of metal

do not coincide with archaeological types. Crossbow tendril brooches were first of all made of

copper, although some consist of bronze or brass. Cast bronze was used for manufacturing some

cast types of brooches. The producer probably intentionally selected this material to cast. But on

the other hand, it seems that the producer used the material that was available, for example, cast

bronze for forged brooches. For silver finds, the PIXE analysis detected a high content of this

metal. A comparison of the results with analyses of Roman silver denarii led us to the hypothesis

that such Roman coins were used as ‘raw material’ for manufacturing these silver items.

Preface

Audronė Bliujienė

Pub. online: 29 Dec 2021 Type: Introduction

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 28 (2021), pp. 4–6

Publications by Vladas Žulkus

Gintautas Zabiela

Pub. online: 20 Dec 2020 Type: Bibliography

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 14 (2010): Underwater Archaeology in the Baltic Region, pp. 18–25

Katja Winkler, Ahrensburgien und Swiderien im mittleren Oderraum. Technologische und typologische Untersuchungen an Silexartefakten der Jüngeren Dryaszeit. OA, Band 11. Kiel-Hamburg, 2019. – 496 pp.

Tomas Rimkus

Pub. online: 5 Dec 2020 Type: Book Review

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 27 (2020), pp. 142–145

Working at the Sharp End: From Bone and Antler to Early Mesolithic Life in Northern Europe. D. Groß, H. Lübke, J.Meadows, D.Jantzen (eds). Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum, Band 10. Kiel-Hamburg, 2019.

Tomas Rimkus

Pub. online: 5 Dec 2020 Type: Book Review

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 27 (2020), pp. 136–141

Hermann Sommer and His Archaeological Legacy. The Preservation of Cultural Monuments on the Sambian Peninsula in the Period 1929 to 1945

Jaroslaw A Prassolow

https://doi.org/10.15181/ab.v27i0.2181

Pub. online: 5 Dec 2020 Type: Article

Open Access

Journal: Archaeologia Baltica Volume 27 (2020), pp. 120–135

Abstract

The article is devoted to the scientific and organisational activities of Hermann Sommer (1899–1962), the founder and head of the Office for the Care and Preservation of the Cultural Heritage in the Fischhausen district of the German province of East Prussia, during the difficult period of Germany’s history from 1929 to 1945. It describes the circumstances surrounding the creation, as well as the later rescue and finally rediscovery by the archaeological community, of Sommer’s historical and archaeological legacy. One of the most important components of the archaeological part of the heritage is the Fischhausen Archive, a card-index archive of archaeological monuments that were known in the district in question by 1945. By this time, the first experience of using the data from the archive had already demonstrated the enormous potential of these documents for the reconstruction of the prewar state of research, as well as for the modern study of the archaeological sites on the Kaliningrad Peninsula. The search for the rest of his legacy has already resulted in a number of unexpected discoveries of further archaeological material. Preliminary results also indicate that similar archives of archaeological monuments could also have been created for other districts of the former German province of East Prussia.

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