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Badania cmentarzyska kurhanowego koło wsi Pakalniai na Litwie. Przyczynek do dyskusji nad datowaniem początków kultury kurhanów wchodniolitewskich

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Vaitkevičius V.

Wiadomości Archeologiczne

2003

vol. LVI

issue 56

111-124

Until the late 1990s archaeology of Buivyžai Heights in East Lithuania was little understood. Only in 1997 regular recording and excavation work was initiated under the programme of rescuing barrow burials undergoing destruction as a result of forestry and cultivation practices. All in all out of the total of 415 burials catalogued in the 1997–2002 period 33 barrows were investigated, connected with East-Lithuanian Barrow Culture. The most interesting results include input from rescue excavation carried out at Pakalniai, comm. Buivyžai, distr. Vilnius, site 1 (Fig. 1–3). Of 27 barrows which survive at Pakalniai, seven most seriously damaged were investigated. Ranging in diameter between 4.5 and 7 m, originally the mounds had been surrounded by stone circles, at present preserved in fragmentary form. The stones in the circles were placed singly, in pairs, or arranged in several rows. The sandy mounds rose to the height of 0.5–0.6 m. Next to stone circles the area around the barrows produced traces of one or more elongated pits, from which sand had been taken when the mounds were being built. Except for barrow 7, which contained two inhumation graves (Fig. 9), all the other graves discovered at Pakalniai produced the remains of cremation burials, cut into the barrow mound or the natural layer (Fig. 4, 6, 8). There is no question that grave 2 from barrow 7 is one of the more striking assemblages; it included a horseshoe fibula with email chaimplevé, 6 lock rings and a necklace of beads, bucket-shaped pendants, cylinders and spiral twists of wire (Fig. 10, 11). The brooch has a triangular-sectioned bow ornamented in the middle with two rows of stamp impressions. The extremities of the brooch arms are decorated with discs having circular cells filled with red enamel and, at the bow centre, a rectangular disc filled with yellow enamel. The necklace discovered in the same grave consisted of 35 elements: 23 glass and 2 amber beads, 4 bronze bucket-shaped pendants, 4 sheet bronze band cylinders and 3 bronze spirals. The assemblage may be dated to the close of the 2nd – beginning of the 3rd c., which corresponds to phases B2/C1–C1a. This makes it probably one of the earliest barrows investigated in East Lithuania. The remaining barrows from Pakalniai, with cremation burials are dated to the 5–6th c. or slightly later. It is to be hoped that insights gained at the barrow cemetery at Pakalniai will persuade Lithuanian researchers to re-examine their current dating of the earliest stages of formation of the East-Lithuanian Barrow Culture.

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1 Wiadomości Archeologiczne

1 2003

1 Vaitkevičius V.

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Badania cmentarzyska kurhanowego koło wsi Pakalniai na Litwie. Przyczynek do dyskusji nad datowaniem początków kultury kurhanów wchodniolitewskich