Journal:Archaeologia Baltica
Volume 8 (2007): Weapons, Weaponry and Man (In memoriam Vytautas Kazakevičius), pp. 205–213
Abstract
Viešvilė cemetery, situated in the Jurbarkas district (the lower Nemunas region in Lithuania), belongs to the Scalvian Baltic ethnocultural group and has been investigated for the last six years. The site contains archaeological material characteristic of ninth to 11th-century Scalvians. The research material gathered during the excavations would allow us to state that those who were buried in the cemetery were related to a dominant part of Scalvian society of that time.
Journal:Archaeologia Baltica
Volume 8 (2007): Weapons, Weaponry and Man (In memoriam Vytautas Kazakevičius), pp. 85–94
Abstract
In the mid-1990s the finds from the West Balt Circle, whose peoples could be identified as the Aestii of Tacitus, included only ten swords dating back to the Roman Period. Excavations conducted in the following years and the retrieved part of the Prussia Museum in Königsberg, as well as numerous other archive materials, have not significantly increased this number. Therefore, it must be assumed that the Aestii rarely used this weapon, regardless of its great appreciation by other barbarians. This might be presumed to have been related to the specific techniques of mounted combat, in which, apart from spears, axes and long battle-knives were used.