Klaipėdos universitetas

In Oberhof (Aukštkiemiai, western Lithuania) all forms of horse burials or offerings can be found: complete horses, horse skulls or the skull and the limbs. In every case where a description is preserved the horse parts were placed to the left of all other items or to the left of the human body, which might be a sign that the horse was used for riding. Horse remains, bridle bits or spurs usually occur in men’s burials that contain weapons. In the community of Oberhof it was not necessary to be on top of the military hierarchy to be a rider or to receive riding gear as grave goods. On the other hand bridles, spurs or horse parts are found quite often in very well furnished graves. So even if theses offerings are often connected with warriors, it has to be considered that they might be not only an indicator for the doubtlessly existing cavalry but also for different social phenomena.

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.

In Lithuania, iron smelting furnaces dating back to the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period have been found in 20 places, not

In Oberhof (Aukštkiemiai, western Lithuania) cemetery, several groups of weapon furnishings can be distinguished. “Sword graves” occupy the central positions when charted on a reconstructed plan of the burial site. Graves are located further away from these centres as the number of weapons contained decreases. Weapon equipment is a key to deciphering the spatial structure of the cemetery.

Neither the sword burials of the Late Roman Iron Age, nor the combination of an axe and arrows in graves indicate the presence of in any particular region. A comparison of weapon burial practice associated with inhumation and cremation burial practice demonstrates beyond doubt that those differences which were identified in older publications reflect only overall changes in weapon burial practice over time. Some lance-heads and in particular the few spear-heads known show a close similarity to Scandinavian weapon types and indicate that weapon types became less specific for regions.