Exotic Lands, Quixotic Friends: Eastern Lithuania and the Carpathian Basin in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (AD c 380 to c 620

Abstract

Little is Currently known about contacts between eastern Lithuania and the Middle Danube region between c 380 and c 620. The evidence that exists has often been interpreted in terms of a migration from the Carpathian Basin into the area of the North European Plains between the Upper Nemunas (Niemen) and the middle course of the Western Dvina. The old interpretation pertaining to the so-called Migration Period in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia needs drastic revision in light of the new archaeological evidence from recent excavations of burial mounds in eastern Lithuania, primarily artefacts (fibulae and buckles) most likely produced in the Middle Danube region. Our main argument is that, instead of a migration from the Carpathian Basin (or alternatively from the north-eastern area of present-day Poland), as commonly assumed by Lithuanian archaeologists, the evidence from excavated barrows in eastern Lithuania points to an intensive contact — most likely a gift-giving sequence — with communities in the Middle Danube region within a relatively short period of time following the demise of the Hunnic polity in the aftermath of the battle on the Nedao River (AD 454). We offer an explanation for this phenomenon, which, at the same time, is an alternative to the idea of a return migration from the Carpathian Basin (mainly of Baltic mercenaries in the service of the [defeated] Huns).