Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The paper is dedicated to the generalisation of the investigations results for the 13th–15th Curonian Spit archaeological sites, with the analyse of the main types of finds and supposed Prussian and Curonian contact zone problem. Last decade’s established theories about the 13th–15th Curonian Spit archaeological sites populaton are also reviewed and revised. Unpublished till now new archaeological investigations and archival data is reflected in this study.

The final phase of the Viking Age in the Prussian material culture was marked by the proliferation of media in the retinue of the Prussians and Curonians bronze and iron products, coated (plated) of silver. By the XIV century from the Prussian nobility extends the custom of wearing “knightly” zones, as the Order’s decorated and traditionally Prussian images. Later burials of Christianized Prussians plated items disappear along with the main array of other burial items.

On the basis of archaeological and historical sources and the accumulated historiographical materials, the article analyzes the data on the wooden castles in the ethnic territory of Samogitia in the 13th c. which survived as mounds to the present time. The information about the said castles is scanty. The mounds best studied in terms of archaeology are those of Daugėliškiai, Šaukštelis, and Vedriai, however, no obvious findings of the 13th c. were found in them. Historical sources mention a nameless castle next to Georgenburg castle, built by the Order in 1259, and a never localized Tviremet castle in the same region. The scantiness of the data on wooden castles in Samogitia in the 13th c. cannot be accounted for by merely a shortage of research.

The crusades of the 13th century in the Baltic region represented a conflict between different social systems: on the one hand, the feudal system of Western Europe, and on the other hand, a social model closer to that of the Viking Age society. In the military conflicts of the early 13th century, the Curonians made use of the tactics and experience developed during the Viking Age. That included swift attacks at sea and a rapid change from fighting at sea to fighting on land, tactics that seriously threatened the crusader forces in the Baltic, including Riga, which was attacked by the Curonians on 13 July 1210.

The Ėgliškiai-Anduliai cemetery is the largest Curonian burial site ever researched. However, during the Second World War this cemetery’s artefacts and archival material were scattered throughout museums, archives and various institutions in several countries. In this article, the authors present an intricate reconstruction of this burial monument based only on the surviving archival material of the research by German archaeologists, and only on a small collection of artefacts, as well as the research by Lithuanian archaeologists in recent years.