Ankstyvųjų baltų religija archeologiniais duomenimis

LTArcheologiniai priešistorinės religijos tyrimai iki pat XX a. pabaigos ir XXI a. pradžios buvo negausūs, komplikuoti ir kontraversiški. Lietuvoje tokia situacija išlieka iki šiandienos. Šiame straipsnyje trumpai apžvelgiama religijos archeologijos situacija pasaulyje ir Lietuvoje. Pasitelkus archeologinius duomenis bei naudojant šiuolaikinę religijos archeologijos teoriją ir metodologiją rekonstruojami kai kurie ankstyvųjų baltų religijos bruožai. Straipsnyje aptariami kraštovaizdžio archeologijos duomenys siejami su pasaulėžiūra ir religija. Nustatyta, kad ir Lietuvoje, kaip ir kituose Europos regionuose, kai kurios bendruomenės padalindavo kontroliuojamą teritoriją į zonas: religinę ir pasaulietinę. Straipsnyje rekonstruojami įvairūs ankstyvųjų baltų religiniai ritualai, vykdyti gyvenvietėse, ūkinėse teritorijose ir mirusiųjų laidojimo vietose. Raktiniai žodžiai: religijos archeologija, ankstyvųjų baltų religija, archeologiniai tyrimai, archeologiniai duomenys, ritualai, aukojimas. [Iš leidinio]

ENThe article reviews the status of archaeological research on prehistoric religion in general and in Lithuania particular, on the basis of archaeological data. Religion in Prehistory had formed naturally for hundreds of years and penetrated almost all different spheres of human life. It was an important element, of prehistoric societies in the Baltic Region. Religious beliefs and actions were associated with other societal activities and structured most of societal life. However since the Enlightenment, religion has been ignored by all of the sciences. At the end of 19th century and especially in the 20th century, partly due to the influence of Marxism, religion was taken to be a false idea, with nothing in common with science. Archaeologists have assumed that religion, as associated with belief and spirituality, is not possible to study by using archaeological data, because material culture is diametrically opposed to religious believe. The materiality of archaeology was one of the main factors to neglect religion. The leading archaeological schools of the 20th century: Cultural-historical, Marxist, and New or Processual archaeology were not able to do qualified archaeological research of Prehistoric religion, because of lack an appropriate theory and research methodology. Also these schools of thought were not concentrated on spiritual and religious issues, but rather on other aspects of research, including artefacts, typology, chronology, burial sites, economy, ecology, evolution and others. The situation in archaeology changed radically during the last fourth decades with the appearance of postprocessual and cognitive processual archaeologies.These schools has had an enormous positive impact and opened up a new possibilities for archaeology and were much better foundations for the general theory and methodology of studying spirituality and religion. Despite the new possibilities, even at the very end of the 20th century archaeological studies on prehistoric religion were still neglected. The situation has changed rapidly in the last two decades, especially in Anglo-American and Scandinavian archaeology. New, modern, and influential publications came to light, which helped firmly establish theoretical and methodological tools for archaeological research on prehistoric religion at the beginning of the 21st century. In Lithuania, even in last three decades the majority of archaeologists still payed insufficient attention to prehistoric religion. The rare interpretations of just some aspects of religion were mostly speculative, divorced from data and very naive. Substantial progress in the last three decades was made in recording, summarizing, and publishing data about religion-related archaeological sites, done by Vykintas Vaitkevičius. However, the biggest advance in archaeological studies of religion, appeared in the 1980s and 1990s and is attributed to Marija Gimbutas (Gimbutienė). She has used a new research methodology, named archaeomythology, which was based on the use of archaeological, mythological, folkloristic and linguistic data formulated and a new theoretical approach, to analyse and reconstruct the Baltic and European prehistoric religion. This multidisciplinary approach has had a large theoretical and methodological influence not only in the Baltic region, but also in other European regions as well.In summing up, one can state that despite some progress in recording and publishing data about religion related ritual sites, we still know very little about late prehistoric religion in Lithuania. The majority of archaeologists still pay no or only minimal attention to prehistoric religion. Some publications dealing with late prehistoric period in Lithuania contain not a single word about religion. In other publications one can find only a few pages devoted to the topic. In these publications, a descriptive character of some ritual sites and/or artefacts prevails. The interpretations of some aspects of prehistoric religion were mostly speculative, divorced from the data, and naive. The aim of the article is to outline the current state of archaeological research of the prehistoric religion in Lithuania and outside and provide some interpretations of religious related materials, found in Lithuania and attributed to the early Baltic society. [...] Keywords: archaeology of religion, religion of early Balts, archaeological research, archaeological data, rituals, sacrifice. [From the publication]

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