Archaeologia Baltica

The article discusses the rapidly changing geocultural situation from the fifth to the seventh century in east and southeast Lithuania. As chiefdoms with strong leaders were taking shape from the fifth to the seventh centuries, the demonstration of power by means of exceptional weapons and other cultural elements became a highly important factor.

On the basis of statistical economic indicators, diplomatic correspondence, diaries of Russian travellers, memoirs, essays, and letters, the article seeks to answer the question of what place East Prussia occupied in the economic, political, and cultural space of Russia. When considering the dimensions making up the image of East Prussia that was maintained in the consciousness of Russian people, the author identifies six of them and demonstrates the changes of their content in different discourses supported within the Russian Empire from the mid-19th c. to World War I.

According to the data of 2008, eight horsemen buried in grave pits with complete horse skeletons had been discovered in only four of the East Lithuanian barrow cemeteries of the second half of the fifth century. The majority of these graves already were pillaged in antiquity. The barrows with graves of men interred with horses are concentrated in a small territory between Lakes Tauragnas, Žeimenis, and Vajuonis, in an area that does not exceed 50-60 sq. km. Particularly rich burials with silver and silver artefacts, most of which originated in the middle Danube and Carpathian Basin, are found in this small region. Such burials are associated with supreme rulers and high ranking military leaders. Burials of well, but standardly armed, horsemen and infantrymen also are found in the region. They can be associated with the retinue of supreme rulers. Current data suggest that while multi-ethnic groups of people reached the East Lithuanian micro-region between Lakes Tauragnas, Žeimenis, and Vajuonis during the Migration Period, the newcomers vanished from the local population over the course of four generations. This small region’s concentration of great wealth and military power, along with marked differences in social structure emphasized even in the structure of the barrow cemeteries, would suggest that a form of government identical to that of a chiefdom had been created in the region.

The article is devoted to the economic structure of chiefdoms’ socio-political organisation, and the role of the economy in constructing and maintaining social and power relations in Latvia in the middle and late Iron Age.