Lietuvos archeologija

The article presents material from the archaeological excavations at Aþuðilë barrow cemetery. During 2000–2007, 12 badly disturbed mounds were excavated in it. They were ringed with pits or ditches and some of them had stone kerbs. Cremations with grave goods or the remains of disturbed burials and isolated finds were discovered in the barrows. The majority of them date to the 8th–9th centuries.

The article presents a reliability assessment of the osteological sex determination of a cremated individual. For this it uses material from 80 cremations from East Lithuanian barrows. The research method is a comparison of the sex of interred individuals as determined osteologically and the gender determined on the basis of grave goods. It is asserted that the minimum reliability of osteological sexing is approximately 70% and that it is probably even as high as about 85%.

The article investigates the social organisation of the societies that left the East Lithuanian barrow culture. It makes a comparative analysis of osteologically identified adult male and female burials. The burial rite elements that indicate an individual’s status were defined in the study: the construction of the barrow, the construction of the grave, burial in an individual or collective grave, burial in a new or previously created barrow, the number of artefacts, the number of artefact types, and the imputed value of the sets of grave goods. A survey of the burials reveals five interconnected status dimensions, namely sex, age, achieved status, ascribed status, and chronological change.

The site of Groß Fredenwalde was discovered in 1962 and has been known as a Mesolithic multiple burial since 14C-dates verified an early Atlantic age in the early 1990s. New research since 2012 reconstructed the situation of the poorly documented rescue excavation in 1962 and identified six individuals from at least two separate burials. The new excavations uncovered more burials and Groß Fredenwalde stands out as the largest Mesolithic cemetery in North Central Europe and the oldest cemetery in Germany. In this paper the known burial evidence from this site is presented and the location of the cemetery, mortuary practices, and grave goods are discussed in a broader European context. Northern and Eastern connections appear especially tangible in Groß Fredenwalde and it is suggested that the community associated with the Groß Fredenwalde Mesolithic cemetery was integrated into wider cultural networks connected to the North and East.