Archaeologia Baltica

The article is devoted to Schönwarling/Skowarcz and Dollkeim/Kovrovo-type crossbow fibulae with a long narrow foot and a full catch-plate, one of the most characteristic chronotypes of the Migration Period. The authors describe a number of specific construction features of the fibulae in the Sambian-Natangian culture area, which define their typological placement. Based on the results of a comparative analysis of prewar and modern archaeological sources, the authors propose an up-to-date specified chronology of these types. Contrary to the currently popular hypothesis, the analysed archaeological material in the Sambian-Natangian area does not demonstrate co-existence, but instead the smooth replacement of Schönwarling/Skowarcz fibulae by those of the Dollkeim/Kovrovo type in the transition phase D2/D3, i.e. about 430 AD.

The Civitas Rutenica area, inhabited by Orthodox believers, emerged in Vilnius in the late 13th century and early 14th century. The development of this part of the city can be traced all through the 14th century. The cemetery that was discovered in the central part of Civitas Rutenica reflects cultural and social changes in the Orthodox community. Christian burial rites were practised in this cemetery. Several graves contained luxurious grave goods, including jewellery, some of which was common to the Slavs, and some of which had local origins. As an integrated approach to burial traditions indicates, people of the Orthodox faith were buried in this cemetery. According to written sources, the elite from Rus’ arrived in Vilnius at that time. An analysis of anthropological material reveals some features of the social structure of the Orthodox community.

The article presents certain features of Sambian-Natangian culture in the Roman Period. The author directly links characteristics of the social structure of Aestian society, which formed at the turn of the B2/C1–C2 periods, to the nature of the amber trade, in which members of Sambian-Natangian culture participated widely. It is possible to draw some conclusions on the basis of the interrelations revealed, and to attempt to give a very general and subjective reconstruction of the Aestian social structure which had developed by the end of the Roman Period.

The article presents the publication and an attempt at the analysis of the brooches from grave 165 of the Bol’shoe Isakovo (formerly Lauth) burial ground. These are special finds which produces pieces of animal-headed crossbow brooches of the Migration Period in Sambian-Natangian culture and the western Baltic region. Brooches from the grave of the Bol’shoe Isakovo burial ground should be one of the earliest examples of the animal style in the southeast Baltic, and an instance of contacts between northern Europe and the Sambian population in the Early Migration Period.

Presently the greatest number of riders with horse burials on the territory of Sambian-Natangian Culture was discovered in the Aleika-3 cemetery. The appearance of this burial custom falls on the beginning – the middle of the second century. The rite appears in Sambia in the completed manner. Horse equipment of Aleika-3 cemetery has numerous analogies in the Danube region, this fact enables to suggest that its appearance in the region follows German-Sarmatian contacts during the Marcomannic Wars. The custom to bury horse to a rider reaches Western Balts with the Germans who took part in these wars. The grave furnishings of Aleika-3 riders in practice do not differ in contents from the tackle of Germania Liberia riders. The abundance of the Roman imports found in Aleika-3 cemetery including the luxury items and clearly expressed relationship with Welbark Culture are the result of the fact that the multiethnic society oversaw the beginning of the amber trade in this region and probably controlled it. Archaeological evidence of Aleika-3 cemetery enables to conclude that the beginning of the process of clan system degrading is fixed in the second century. This process was conditioned by penetrating of the German ethnic component involved into amber trade.