When Balts Met Vikings at the Curonian Lagoon. Strategies of Social Representation at the Viking-Age Cemetery at Linkuhnen

Abstract

The cemetery at Linkuhnen by River Memel had a long history of usage by local Baltic tribes, starting in the early Roman Period and continuing to the Viking Age, with the highest number of burials in the 10th–11th centuries AD. When Linkuhnen was excavated in the 1930s by German archaeologists, it was considered a Viking cemetery, since some of the grave goods (especially weaponry) seemed to bear signs of Scandinavian influences. However, the Scandinavian influence was overstated and the interaction between local Balts and Vikings was never thoroughly explained by the excavators. New research on the old excavation archives indicates that Linkuhnen was not a Viking burial ground but that incoming influences from Scandinavia brought a shift to the internal strategies of representation by local Baltic elites. The burial rite changed from simple single cremation graves to lavishly equipped collective cremation graves for members of powerful families or military units. Another remarkable feature is the large number and ‘international’ character of weaponry in the burials, some of the highest quality (Ulfberht), while the jewellery represents local types only. Unlike other Scandinavian-influenced sites on the southern Baltic coast, the Scandinavian presence in the River Memel area only led to minor interactions between Balts and Vikings, though it had a significant influence on the local Baltic elites’ internal representation of status.