Abstract

Ranged combat weapons (bows and arrows, darts) of the Western Balts have been largely overlooked by European archaeologists. The article examines the rarest finds in Prussian archaeology, arrowheads of the Viking age. This variety of archaeological finds in historical Prussia is quite different from the situation in Lithuania. While in Lithuania arrowheads are found mainly in fortified settlements and point at the enemy’s onslaughts, in Amberland they were found exclusively in burial sites. This is largely the result of poorly studied Prussian settlements due to objective reasons. Arrowheads have been found only occasionally in most of the funerary complexes referred to in the article, and the most probable reason for their presence in the burials is the death of the buried person. That is why they had not been removed during his/her life. The finds of arrowheads with thorns at the graveyard of the Kaup mountain area allows us to draw analogies to the similar arrowheads at the Kaukai fortified settlement of the Jatvians. This burial ground, containing the remains of West-Baltic merchants, craftsmen and commoners, who lived here in the 9th through 13th centuries, is related to the commercial settlement of the Viking Age at the planigraphic level. This settlement was an important link in the chain of trade centres of Baltic coast inhabitants and occupied an important position on the Neman amber route in the 11th and 12th centuries. We may suppose that Prussian and Couronian merchants clashed with local natives of the Upper Neman region, who used such arrowheads, judging by the finds from the Kaukai fortified settlement. Navigating the river Nemen was not always safe for these merchants. Lancet-shaped arrowheads from Kaup may be evidence of conflicts between local inhabitants and Scandinavians, who were competitors of Prussian merchants on the Baltic trade routes.