Some remarks on amber usage tradition and amber provenance in the interfluve of Nemunas and Daugava rivers in the Migration Period

Abstract

Enormous changes in the territory between the Nemunas in the south and the Daugava in the north were already noticeable during the early Migration Period. The new evidence from recent research shows the changes in the inner settlement structure and network of settlements all over the territory of the Balts from the end of the 4th century AD to the beginning of the 5th century AD in the interfluvia of Nemunas and Daugava rivers (A. Bliujienė 2013, maps IV–VI). The amber wearing tradition in the region between the Nemunas and Daugava rivers was under constant changes (Fig. 1). Amber artefacts are extremely rarely found in Lithuania and even in the entire eastern region with burial sites dated to the times of Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus 23/24–79), when he in his great work Natural History (Naturalis Historiae) describes around 77 AD a trade mission that travelled specially to the southeaster Baltic Sea coast to bring amber back to Rome (Pliny, book XXVII, § 45). This mission was organized during the reign of Emperor Nero (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, 54–68) around year 60–61/62. The amber wearing tradition did not change at the end of the 1st century AD, as briefly described by Publius Cornelius Tacitus (55/58–116/120) around the year 98 in his book De origine et situ Germanorum (Concerning the Origin and Situation of the Germans) commonly referred as Germania. (Tacitus § 45). Furthermore, for Tacitus description of amber or glesum (glaesum) formation, its quality and gathering manner was the reason to mention amber gatherers – the Aestiorum gentes.