Lietuvos istorijos institutas

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.