Klaipėdos universitetas

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 discusses the rapidly changing geocultural situation from the fifth to the seventh century in east and southeast Lithuania. As chiefdoms with strong leaders were taking shape from the fifth to the seventh centuries, the demonstration of power by means of exceptional weapons and other cultural elements became a highly important factor.

Hill-forts are visually distinct archaeological monuments of the Lithuanian landscape; despite excavations that have recently become more intensive, more often than not we still make judgments of hill-forts on the basis of their surviving image, which is assumed to reflect the final stage of their existence. Usually our knowledge about the size of the settlement at its foot, its planigraphy, and of course chronology, is too slender to make any conclusions. By employing complex non-destructive research methods (palynological, geochemical, lithological and geomagnetic analysis, as well as 14C and thermoluminescence dating), the article discusses the time of the rise and the abandonment of Skomantai hill-fort and settlements, the hierarchical relations with the hill-fort as an object forming the settlement structure of the neighbouring area, both settlements at the foot of the hill, and the surrounding burial grounds and monuments, all of which make up a micro-region. As the economic model of the community and the social structure of society changed, the relations between the hill-fort and the settlements changed, as did the purpose of the hill-fort.

The bog offerings of the Balts dating back to the period from the first century to the first half of the eighth century, and found in the Nemunas-Daugava interfluvia, are studied as part of the panhuman experience, and as a result of the influence of the Germanic culture of a period covering the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period. In the lands of the Balts, however, offerings in water turned into a self-contained phenomenon known until historic times. This article discusses the links between bog offering sites and sacred waters. It discusses the position of bog offerings in the archaeological complex, the composition of offerings and changes in them, and the main intentions of the offerings, which can be characterised as offerings of war booty (to the god of war, as proof of a warrior’s honour), the transfer of valuables into the transcendental space (give to get back), and communication with the gods and with ancestors (requests and tokens of gratitude).

According to the data of 2008, eight horsemen buried in grave pits with complete horse skeletons had been discovered in only four of the East Lithuanian barrow cemeteries of the second half of the fifth century. The majority of these graves already were pillaged in antiquity. The barrows with graves of men interred with horses are concentrated in a small territory between Lakes Tauragnas, Žeimenis, and Vajuonis, in an area that does not exceed 50-60 sq. km. Particularly rich burials with silver and silver artefacts, most of which originated in the middle Danube and Carpathian Basin, are found in this small region. Such burials are associated with supreme rulers and high ranking military leaders. Burials of well, but standardly armed, horsemen and infantrymen also are found in the region. They can be associated with the retinue of supreme rulers. Current data suggest that while multi-ethnic groups of people reached the East Lithuanian micro-region between Lakes Tauragnas, Žeimenis, and Vajuonis during the Migration Period, the newcomers vanished from the local population over the course of four generations. This small region’s concentration of great wealth and military power, along with marked differences in social structure emphasized even in the structure of the barrow cemeteries, would suggest that a form of government identical to that of a chiefdom had been created in the region.

In the fifth to the eighth centuries, graves of well-armed men and their riding horses –or the ritual parts of horses– were spread throughout almost the entire mainland part of Lithuania and Latvia, or in the territory between the Nemunas and Daugava / Western Dvina Rivers. This was the northernmost part of Europe in which the custom had spread in the fifth to the eighth centuries. While the horsemen’s and horses’ burial customs varied in separate regions of the defined area, still everywhere the horseman and horse were interred in one grave pit, with the horse almost always to the person’s left. In their journey to the Afterlife, however, the bond between horseman and horse began to vary in the communities that lived in the more peripheral regions. The variety of burial customs was associated with differences in the communities’ social structure; these differences affected interment traditions and formed different burial rites. The custom that existed in the Roman Period on the littorals of Lithuania and Latvia to bury ritual horse parts (the head or head and legs) and spurs with armed men disappeared; here only bridle bits symbolized the horse in armed men’s graves in the fifth to the eighth centuries. Warriors’ graves with equestrian equipment spread throughout the entire region between the Nemunas and Daugava in the fifth to eighth centuries. With the change in burial customs (with the spread of cremation), and, apparently, in worldview, riding horse burials appeared that no longer could be associated with the concrete burials of people.