Archaeologia Baltica

The article is devoted to the archaeological discoveries in the former village of Perdollen. A flat

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.

A shield boss and a shield grip with silver decoration were recently found in the Przeworsk culture cemetery at Czersk in the Piaseczno district in central Poland. The shield boss, type J.7, has three times three bronze thimble-headed rivets, covered with silver. The bronze shield grip has silvered rivet plates with thimble-headed rivets, decorative filigree studs, and openwork decoration. The technique that was used to produce this specimen is not clear, despite metallographic analysis. The shield has analogies in Scandinavia (Hunn, Radved, Brostorp) and the northern Elbian circle (Hamfelde). It was probably a parade shield, an international sign of the warrior elite in the Early Roman Period in the barbaricum.

During the Roman period the Bogaczewo Culture cemeteries in Masuria included horse graves. The features often contained bits, whereas other parts of horse tack were found rarely. The horse graves discussed in the paper cannot be unequivocally linked to human burials - possibly horsemen’s graves, as the latter had been situated shallowly under the surface, which led to their damage.

The article concerns the fork-like artefact found in grave 22 at Gurjevsk (formerly Trausitten). Based on Herbert Jankuhn’s files, it had seemed to be a part of a Roman helmet, but after finding it in the Prussia Collection (nowadays in Berlin) it seems to be of quite modern origin (a musket rest?).