Klaipėdos universitetas

Penannular brooches with rolled terminals are known in Latgallian areas from the eighth century, and brooches with polygonal (faceted and funnel-shaped) terminals from the middle of the ninth century. At the same time, they were widespread in a large area, including Scandinavia. Penannular brooches on Gotland have been analysed, and these are very similar to those of the Latgallians. Although the origin of the polygonal terminals of brooches is unclear, the same ornamentation can be found on Gotland, and in a broader context in the Scandinavian Vendel Period patterns of ornamentation. The new ideas appeared in the form of Latgallian penannular brooches at the same time or a little later than on Gotland. The new pattern of ornamentation also influenced the ornamentation of bracelets, or vice versa. The contacts between Latgallians and gotland or scandinavia were possibly long-standing, lasting about three centuries. If Latgallian artisans were themselves producing this kind of penannular brooch, then they were not creating new forms, but imitating existing ones.

If you make your way through the Gotlandic landscape today, you can still see agricultural remains originating from cultivation that took place two-three thousand years ago. The once cultivated land displays itself as systems of conjoined plots surrounded by baulks. The concern of this paper is the social implications this kind of agriculture had during the Pre-Roman Iron Age (500 BC-AD). This was a time when the practice was conventional and field systems were part of people’s surroundings. How did an established, yet changeable landscape structure affect people, and what values, apart from strictly nutritional, did cultivation offer them?