Lietuvos istorijos institutas

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 article is devoted to the archaeological excavations at the two barrow cemeteries in Dovainonys village (Kaišiadorys District), namely the present-day Dovainonys – Kapitoniškės I–V barrow cemeteries, which had all together been previously called Dovainonys I, as well as nearby Dovainonys II barrow cemetery, which has now been destroyed. Excavations were conducted at them in 1908 (T. Daugirdas), 1932 (E. Volter, C. Engel, J. Puzinas, and K. Mekas), and 1953 (A. Tautavičius). The excavation reports and finds are preserved in various archives and museums but some of them have disappeared. This article systematises and publishes the data about the Dovainonys barrow cemeteries. It focuses not only on an analysis of the investigated objects and discovered finds but also the changes in the landscape in the vicinity of barrow cemeteries and the course and methods of the excavation.

The article is devoted to the development of the habitation of the microregion in the vicinity of Baliuliai village and Lake Perūnas (Švenčionys District). After comparing the archaeological data, which were previously available, and the information collected during the fieldwork conducted in implementing the ‘Archaeolandscape’ project with data from an analysis of the palaeobotanical samples that were taken, an attempt was made to determine the likely intensity of the human activity in the microregion during various periods from Palaeolithic to historical times. On the basis of the archaeological and palaeoecological science data, the article presents a scheme of the microregion’s habitation.