Archaeologia Baltica

The article studies the tactics of Slavic mounted units in the army of Belisarius during the Gothic war in Italy. The texts of Procopius of Caesarea show that the Slavs and the Ants during the Gothic war were part of the Hunnic detachment and were mounted archers, like the Huns who conducted battle at distance, avoiding a close contact with the enemy. Beyond all doubt, the Slavs and the Ants, or rather a small part of them, learned this fighting technique from the Huns, whose neighbours they were on the Lower Danube and in the wooded steppe of the modern-day Ukraine.

Several different cultural traditions stand out in Long Barrow Culture. Some of them are characteristic of the Baltic Finno-Ugrians, others of the Balts and Slavs. The aim of this work is to distinguish all these mentioned traditions that are manifested in warrior horseman’s accoutrements and riding gear of the fifth to seventh centuries. From the armament point of view, both Slavic tribes and the inhabitants of the Byelorussian and west Russian forest belt, whose ethnocultural affiliation remains disputed (Balts, Slavs, Balto-Slavs, Finno-Balts, Finno-Ugrians?), comprise an integral continuum from the River Danube to Lake Ladoga. The work also discusses the migrational processes that affected the people in the forest belt in the fifth and sixth centuries.

In this article, some new approaches to Taurapilis prehistoric site, situated in the Utena district in Lithuania, are proposed. As a projection of a taurus horn on the ground in a water form, Lake Tauragnas was the principal factor shaping the particular prehistoric space and determining its status. In this way also, the origins of the Taurapilis Central Place, dated to the fifth or sixth centuries, are explained.