Klaipėdos universitetas

In the context of moderate external variations of East Lithuanian Barrow culture barrows, ones of exceptional diameters and shapes stand out. These are low trapezoid-shaped cross-section mounds, and some are even more complex structures consisting of banks and ditches. Eleven large barrows are known in six cemeteries, all located in extensive cemetery concentrations, along the right bank of the River Neris, and on the left bank of the River Žeimena and in the lakes region to the north of it. This location suggests their significance on a level above a single community. None have yet been excavated, but the stone kerbs, the setting of the barrows in the cemeteries, and the typological and AMS radiocarbon dates from the excavated nearby mounds point to the Migration period, the 5th century being their most probable dating. The amount of labour invested in building large barrows is evidence of mourners’ exclusive mortuary behaviour. In agreement with the concept of energy expenditure in burial, this signals the idiosyncratic status of the deceased. Excavation data from other cemeteries does, however, disprove the idea that we should implicitly restrict great energy expenditure to the highest military elite. The dual model of social hierarchy in social psychology argues that status may be attained through either dominance or prestige. Dominance-based status is expected to force high involvement in burial by power and superiority, which is possible in societies with developed status inheritance, while a prestige-based one is decided by specific social roles, personal achievement, and respect. In a barbarian society, which balanced between chiefdom and big-man type social systems, both were interrelated.

The author presents some of his recent results and observations made within the framework of a research project devoted to a comparative typo-chronological analysis of Migration Period knives-daggers in the basin of the Baltic Sea, and to the study of socio-historical tendencies and events marked by the appearance of these artefacts. The intensification of field research in the region in recent years, as well as the rediscovery of parts of the former Prussia-Museum’s collection and regained access to the archives of prewar researchers, has allowed the author to back up the study with an unprecedentedly high number of knife-dagger finds and relevant burial complexes.