Archaeologia Baltica

This paper presents briefly the history of the Nurmuiža estate and its owners, and summarises the results of the 2008 and 2009 archaeological investigations. Nurmuiža belonged to the von Fircks, one of the most influential families of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. The influential positions the family held since the 16th century demanded a certain standard of presentation. The visually impressive Nurmuiža estate served this purpose well. The family’s status was also shown by its settled standard of living. The way of life on the estate has so far been deduced from written and iconographic sources. The aim of this paper is to look at the 16th to 19th-century luxury lifestyle at Nurmuiža through the most interesting archaeological finds from two seasons of excavations.

The horse bones found in Lithuanian habitation sites that date to the Late Neolithic and to the Early Bronze Age still do not indicate that these horses were ridden upon or used to plough the soil. However, horse bones have been found in Lithuanian territory only in those sites where bones of other animals that were domesticated have been found. This suggests that domesticated horses in Lithuania might have spread together with other domesticated animals by way of cultural diffusion during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.