The Archaeology of Baltic Religions

Abstract

Baltic countries have traditionally been treated separately in religious studies and the current approach — to look at Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as one unit — is exceptional. It is clear that the Baltic countries should not be treated as one entity and for historical, religious, and especially for reasons of different sources, all three areas should be covered separately. But as the methodologies and theoretical approaches have been very similar throughout the history of research, the current approach is justified. This article focuses on archaeological studies, leaving the folk religion from the near past — which is based on oral tradition and which has dominated over the archaeological approach — less represented.