Archaeologia Baltica

This article discusses the development of the Gołdap Group, which is part of Sudovian culture, during the Migration Period. The graves from necropolises of that region (especially from the cemetery at Czerwony Dwór) have quite rich grave goods, which allows for a detailed chronological analysis. It is complemented by an analysis of the stratigraphy of features dug into the barrows. On this basis, five chronological phases in the development of the Gołdap Group, which existed from the early Phase D of the Early Migration Period until Phase E2 of the Late Migration Period, can be distinguished.

In recent years, the area to the southeast of the Gulf of Finland (on the Izhora plateau and in the lower reaches of the River Luga) has opened up a number of archaeological sites dating from the first to the tenth century AD. There are stone graves from the Pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age, settlements with scratched ceramics, cremation burials from the Migration Period, hill-forts and cemeteries from the Viking Age. These sites can be built into a cultural and chronological sequence. Finds from these sites are very similar to objects from Estonia and southwest Finland. At the beginning of the second millennium, Medieval Russian culture, which levelled local cultural characteristics, spread on the Izhora plateau.

One peculiarity of the Suwalska Group of Sudovian culture is the very large number of barrows with destroyed inhumation graves. Since the 1950s, this fact has been interpreted as the result of the robbery of grave goods, which took place in late Antiquity. Common features in the ‘robbed graves’ observed in cemeteries at Osowa site I, and the villages of Szwajcaria and Żywa Woda, were: 1) the concavity of the top of the barrow and the lack of stones in the stone lining on the barrow surface; 2) traces of the ‘robbery trench’; 3) the multilayer stone pavement (concentration) over the skeleton grave; 4) the complete or partial lack of human bones in the grave, especially the lack of a skull and bones of the post-cranial skeleton, with the exception of the legs; and 5) traces of fire in the grave pits and on the stone pavements. These features and the almost complete lack of human bones in the stratified layers of the barrows, formed as a result of ‘robbery’, lead us to the conclusion that they were material traces of ritual practices connected with opening the barrows and relocating human bones and grave goods from inhumations. The basis of these activities was probably the principle of the proper burial of the dead. The real moment of death was not the end of the vital functions, but the complete decomposition of the body. After that, the re-deposition and secondary burial of bones took place.

The article summarises new investigations at the famous site of Linkuhnen and its material culture, which was excavated between 1928 and 1939, but never really published. The surviving finds from the cemetery, together with information collected from diverse archival sources, show a picture of a burial ground which was probably used from the second to the 11th century. The richness and the international references of the local material culture during the Viking Age point to an important role of the site in the network of trade and communication between the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

Three vast areas in northern Europe during the Roman Period are known for their people’s development of a distinctive viewpoint regarding the riding horse that was reflected in sacrificial rites (north Germany; the Jutland Peninsula; Zealand, Funen, other Baltic Sea islands, as well as southern Scandinavia) and burial rites (Dollkeim-Kovrovo, Sudovian, West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave cultures, and, in part, the Lower Nemunas and Bogaczewo cultures). The custom at the end of the second century and in the third century to bury a riding horse (usually only the horse’s head, head and legs, or individual teeth) with armed men was especially distinct in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture area. This burial rite feature distinguishes the mentioned cultural unit (Aistians) area from the communities of other Balts who lived in current Lithuanian territory. The burial rite features that had developed in the West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture area illustrate the warriors’ hierarchy and the military’s dependency on the society’s nobility that already existed in the Roman Period. These social structure features link the West Balt communities with the northern Germanic peoples. West Lithuanian Stone Circle Grave Culture was the northernmost barbaricum territory in which riding horses were so often buried with people.