Западный отрезок Неманского торгового пути в эпоху викингов
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Archeologija; Dirhemai; Gintaras; Kuršiai; Lietuvos istorija; Nemunas; Prekyba; Prūsai; Viduramžiai; Vikingai; Amber; An epoch of Vikings; Archaeology; Curonians; Dirhaims; Nemunas river; Prussians; The Middle Ages; The river Neman; Tje Lithuanian history; Trade; Vikings.
ENThe end of the last and the beginning of this millennia are marked by a growth of interest in antiquities of the Viking Age in the territory of the southeast Baltic. In a particular case, it resulted in activities of a new generation of the Lithuanian archaeologists working at the Universities of Vilnius and Klaipėda. In the coastal zone of the southeast Baltic in 9-ll,h centuries there was a system of trade routes, the western point of which was the trade and craft settlement of Каир, located in the neighbourhood of the biggest group of armed forces in the Prussian lands. It is obvious that there were close relations between those forces and the population of Каир. Armed men from the area of Каир controlled the Brokist strait. Already from the Curonian und Prussian coast trading caravans crossed the sea to Scandinavia. It is possible that during military actions targeted at the suppression of trading competitors on the shores of the Baltic sea after the occupation of Sambia and the eventual destruction of Каир after 1016 king Knut the Great had created a chain of strongholds on the major trade routes. Such "military outposts" consisted of international military groups located along the banks of the rivers Pregel and Lower Neman. They secured uninterrupted trading on the most western part of the Neman route where the river meets the Baltic sea.During the Viking Age along the whole part of the Lower Neman up to the land between the rivers Neris and Šventoji in the east raw amber was outspreading by means of trade and exchange relations. To the east of these lands slate spindle whorls made in Dneperland had a similar role of the "consumer goods". Probably such zones of distribution of "consumer goods" of the Viking Age correspond to influence zones of the large centres of trade. Каир could have been such a centre in the western part of the Neman route and Gnyozdovo or Kiev in the eastern part. Before a similar analysis of the Upper Ponemane is performed it is too early to speak about the further extension of 9-llth century Neman trade route to the East. In the north trading caravans going on the rivers Šventoji and Disna could reach the river of Kasplja and the Upper Dnepr and in short time they could get to the trade and craft point of Gnyozdovo. In the south through the rivers Neris, Vilija, Svisloch and Berezina caravans could find their way to the middle part of Dneperland slightly to the north of Kiev. Both variants of the end of the Neman trade route had their specificity and were orientated towards the solution of different problems of merchant caravaneers. [From the publication]
- Grobiņa - a sign of an early future port of trade in the Balt Lands / Mateusz Bogucki. Transformatio mundi : the transition from the late migration period to the Early Viking Age in the East Baltic / edited by Mindaugas Bertašius. Kaunas: Kaunas University of Technology Department of Philosophy and Cultural Science, 2006. P. 93-106.
- Kuršiai Baltijos jūros erdvėje / Vladas Žulkus. Vilnius : Versus aureus, 2004. 253 p.
- The lower reaches of the Nemunas (Memel) and Prieglius (Pergel): the settlement situation at the lower reaches in the 6th-11th centuries / Vladas Žulkus. Transformatio mundi : the transition from the late migration period to the Early Viking Age in the East Baltic / edited by Mindaugas Bertašius. Kaunas: Kaunas University of Technology Department of Philosophy and Cultural Science, 2006. P. 17-24.
