Sociocultural Research on Warrior Graves Containing Knife-Daggers in the Sambian-Natangian Cultural Area

Abstract

Knife-daggers are one of the most unusual and narrowly specialized forms of Great Migration era weaponry of the peoples in the southeastern Baltic Sea basin on the territory of western Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad oblast (the Sambian-Natangian culture area). Research indicates the need to radically reconsider hypotheses that have gained currency in the literature of recent years in relation to knife-daggers and shoulder belts [baldrics, baltei Vidgiriai type], their owners, and their relevant culture area. While these presumably formed a functional complex in antiquity, it is possible to distinguish several main types of knife-daggers and their variants. The project reveals that shoulder belts were already used at the end of the Roman Influence era, in its late phase and therefore earlier than the appearance of “classic” knife-daggers. Relevant archeological materials do not confirm concepts that knife-daggers by definition had to be part of the wealthy burials of professional warriors of non-local [allochthonous] ethnocultural origin with a high social status. Knife-daggers were a widespread weapon among free members of Sambian-Natangian cultural communities.