THE SETTLEMENT(S) OF WISKIAUTEN/MOKHOVOYE – VIKING AGE TRADING PORT OR ONLYPERIPHERY?
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-02

In 1865 a rich Viking Age/Early Medieval graveyard with Scandinavian and indigenous Prussian grave goods and various burial traditions was found near the village Wiskiauten in former East Prussia, nowadays Mokhovoye, Kaliningrad district, Russia. It is situated on the Sambian Peninsula, about 3 km from the Baltic coast. Ever since, an implied settlement which is supposed to belong to that graveyard was interpreted as a “colony” or a port of trade in the silver trade routes, comparable to e.g. Birka in Sweden or Hedeby in Germany. In 2005–2011 multifarious traces of small settlements from Neolithic up to Medieval time were discovered around the graveyard. This paper will provide interim results from my PhD thesis on the comprehensive evaluation of the settlement excavations in Wiskiauten, perhaps the first large-scale examination of settlement structures in the surrounding of a supposed Central Place. I would like to discuss why – without concrete evidence – a port of trade is nevertheless expected to have existed in the vicinity. On that basis, my aim is to create a model of Early Medieval settlement structures in former East Prussia. Subsequently, I want to unveil a new picture of an area that is still almost detached from general interpretations of European scale processes in early Medieval Ages.


Author(s): Sirkin, Annika (Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Schleswig; Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz)