Klaipėdos universitetas

With the Christianisation of the Lithuanians in the Middle Ages, fundamental changes brought new Christian images of the Otherworld and entry to it. The image of souls being raised to heaven by angels is one of the images that emerged in the wake of changes in burial rituals. Based on Medieval historical sources, the article examines the image of the angel ascending to heaven that emerged in Balt and Finno-Ugric countries during their Christianisation. It explains how it is related to the Christian image of the Otherworld, and how it changed the pre-Christian Balt and Finno-Ugric mythical perception of the world beyond. It also explores the question of whether, in the Balt and Finno-Ugric mythical world-view, there may have been companions that conducted the soul in the Otherworld (psychopomps), which are seen as angels in Christianity. The research shows that in the earliest written sources describing ancient Balt and Finno-Ugric burials, there is no mention of spirits or deities acting as psychopomps, or of deities in charge of the deceased. The article argues that converts may have learned about angels raising souls to heaven because burial rituals and the concept of life after death changed in the course of Christianisation in Livonia and Prussia.

This article examines cremation cemeteries in west Latvia from the end of the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages (12th–14th/15th centuries). During this period, cremation graves constituted the dominant burial form in the region. We have selected as a case study Lapiņi cemetery, which reveals additional details relating to cremation cemeteries of west Latvia. The aim of the article is to provide further insights into burials of this kind in the Baltic region, which correspond in time to the Curonian expansion in northwest Latvia, followed by the conquest by the Crusaders and the change of religion and burial practices in present-day Latvia. For a better understanding of the environmental conditions at the time of use of the cemetery, taxonomic analysis has been undertaken of the charcoal used as fuel for cremation, as well as an analysis of pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs from cremation graves. Lapiņi is so far the only Curonian cemetery in present-day Latvia where such analyses have been conducted. This has given us a new understanding of the funeral rituals performed on the burial site, and the formation process of cremation cemeteries.

The vallum in lacu (rampart by the lake) mentioned in 15th-century written sources as part of the Medieval landscape of Ostrowite (East Pomerania) has been researched by archaeologists and antiquaries since the 19th century. A wide range of noninvasive archaeological prospection methods were applied at Ostrowite in 2010-2015, including magnetic gradiometry, earth resistance, aerial photography, intensive field-walking, geochemical (phosphate) prospection, and the analysis of Airborne Laser Scanning. They were supplemented and verified by small-scale excavation work. This vast set of prospection methods was integrated into a Geographical Information System (GIS), and combined with an analysis of written sources, and allowed for the identification of a previously unknown ring-fort, which for the last 15 years has gone unnoticed by researchers conducting annual excavations in its vicinity. Its discovery and identification were only possible due to the integration of results from various methods, particularly non-invasive ones.

Finds of decorated hammers or axes made of elk antler are rather rare in Estonia. One axe comes from the River Pärnu, and another from the Otepää hill-fort and later episcopal castle site. In addition, there are two almost identical hammers: one was a stray find from Harju county, and another was found in the Medieval town of Tartu. The two stray finds have no connected items that would enable their dating. The other two examples originate from contexts that cannot be dated exactly. The aim of this research is to find parallels to help us date the Estonian items, to ascertain the material and tools used for producing these items, and to discuss on the basis of the former, and an analysis of the find contexts, the probable areas of usage and meanings of these items. Although it is not possible to date these antler objects precisely, they probably come from the end of the Estonian Prehistoric period or the Middle Ages: the 11th to the 15th centuries. The function of the items is also not definite. Tools in the shape of a hammer were probably used as hammers. It was not possible to use any axe-shaped object as an axe, so assumptions about their function are still just speculative.

In this review of pollen data from the South Swedish uplands, evidence is presented of colonisation and strong agricultural expansion during the 11th to 13th centuries, followed by farm abandonment and land use change during the 14th to 15th centuries. The latter is associated with the Black Death and the late medieval crisis. Pollen data show that abandonment in the uplands resulted in the regrowth of woodland, but also in land use change from cereal growing to grazing. Similar cycles of agricultural expansion and decline are identified also from earlier periods during the Iron Age, which highlights the sensitive character of upland agriculture and settlement.

Viljandi (Fellin), a small town in medieval Livonia, was founded in the second quarter of the 13th century, soon after the Estonian Crusades. The Estonians’ prehistoric hill-fort was replaced by a castle of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, the prehistoric settlement was abandoned, and the location for the new town was chosen on the site of a former field more suitable for fortification. In this paper, zooarchaeological material from three sites, the prehistoric settlement, the Order’s castle and the early medieval town, will be discussed. Despite the presumed changes in Estonian society associated with the Crusades, the analyses reveal no profound differences in meat consumption in the transitional period from prehistory to the middle Ages.

In the eighteenth century, the Abbé Lebeuf was a reknowned historian, a folklorist, a musicologist, and an archaeologist. He published several books and many articles in the Mercure de France. He was still famous in the 19th century but is now almost forgotten. His work contains a great many notes, reflections and other pieces of information of interest to those studying astronomy in culture. I present here a short selection of such fragments.

The supernova explosions of 1006 AD and 1054 AD are, probably, the astronomical events most carefully studied through the analysis of historical sources. But contradictions are still present in several sources concerning SN 1054 and the historical records are not consistent with the astronomical data. This short analysis aims to highlight all these aspects.