Archaeologia Baltica

The purpose of this study is to find out how the settlement systems in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia changed during the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century, and what the trends for further urban change are. In the Soviet period, single farms that existed in all three east Baltic countries were destroyed. The inhabitants of single farms were moved to central settlements. Cities grew in all the republics, especially in the largest centres. A network of satellite settlements grew up around the capitals, which was particularly dense around Tallinn and Riga. The capitals and their surrounding settlements are currently growing at a very high speed in all the east Baltic countries. This concentrates administrative functions and a highly skilled workforce, and attracts the most investment. As a result, peripheral areas, especially villages, are disappearing, and their inhabitants are emigrating. Such areas are becoming unattractive to business.In order to show the situation, the authors used a comparative analysis method, as well as cartographic, graphic and other methods. The anticipation of settlement principles and trends is one of the most important tasks of regional policy in each country. Therefore, an interpolation method was used to make estimates of the urban population in the three largest cities in the east Baltic countries from 2020 to 2023. The trend analysis indicates that the populations of most of the largest cities in the east Baltic countries will decrease.

This article discusses the imagery of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines which accompanied eleven burials in the Stone Age cemetery at Zvejnieki, Latvia. These burials date to the sixth, fifth and early-mid fourth millennia cal BC, according to radiocarbon dates of human remains from ten of the eleven burials, three of which were dated for this paper. The figurines are considered in terms of their characteristic formal qualities and their position within graves. Parallels are drawn with similar finds from elsewhere in the Baltic region. The imagery employed appears to be based on observations of nature, the fishing and hunting lifeways of these communities, and their beliefs concerning life after death, which were not apparently affected by the transitions from Mesolithic to Neolithic, and between Early Neolithic Narva culture and Middle Neolithic Typical Comb Ware Culture.

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.