Lietuvos istorijos institutas

The first osseous finds discovered in the village of Šarnelė in the 20th century during the straightening of the Varduva riverbed, and the site that was later excavated by archaeologists here, have been mentioned in the archaeological literature several times, highlighting the history and circumstances of these discoveries and categorising the artefacts into types. This paper presents the latest research on the six stray bone and antler artefacts found in the Šarnelė village between 1940 and 1965 during the dredging of the Varduva riverbed. Investigations of these artefacts, which began in 2016, have shown that the environment of the former Lake Ertenis is likely to have been visited by humans since the Final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, but artefacts associated with the Subneolithic and Bronze Age are also present. Recent research on these finds has been initiated within the framework of projects funded by the Lithuanian Research Council, which have refined the chronology of the artefacts using AMS 14C dating and the identification of the animal species according to ZooMS. Elements of their typological and decorative features have also been discussed. Although some results have already been published, this study presents all of the available research on the stray osseous finds from Šarnelė.

The diversity of imported goods is characteristic of the Prussian burial sites from the H (late pagan) period. The Sambian Peninsula, based on the abundance of artifacts of Old Rus‘ type, can be compared in the Baltic Sea region with the territory of Eastern Latvia. These artifacts are most commonly found in the rich cremation graves of Sambian Prussian warrior-riders, among which are items imported also from the Western Europe, such as bronze vessels, silver coins, and sword blades. An unusual context is the discovery of slate spindle whorls in the Prussian territory, typically found in Sambian cremation graves along with weapons and equestrian equipment.

The chronology of the Lithuanian Iron Age has up until now been based exclusively on the typology of the finds, usually discovered at burial sites, but the effort to successfully employ typology in dating burial complexes is hindered by a great lack of reference points based on absolute dates. An attempt to fill this gap was made by the scientific project ‘Turning-points in the Iron Age East Lithuania (on the basis of AMS dating)’ during which 30 burials in East Lithuanian barrows were dated using the AMS 14C method. The obtained dates are being published in this article. In selecting the samples, an effort was made to cover all of the chronological horizons of the East Lithuanian barrow culture, as much barrow and burial construction diversity as possible, and as many artefact types as possible. 11 inhumations and 19 cremations were dated. Many of the radiocarbon dates seemed surprisingly old even in those instances where the typology dating is hardly questionable and is clearly connected with European typology schemes. This phenomenon should probably be explained by the freshwater reservoir effect. In order to verify these premises and to evaluate the possible significance of the effect’s impact and the possibility of eliminating this effect, additional investigations need to be conducted.