The Curonian drinking horns of the Viking Age from the Lithuanian coastal area: New insights in light of interdisciplinary analyses

Abstract Drinking horns manufactured from the horns of both domestic and wild animals constituted a widespread category of vessel throughout prehistory and remained a common, multicultural phenomenon during the Viking Age. Such vessels were particularly prevalent among the Curonians, whose settlements were concentrated along the coastal regions of present-day Lithuania and southwestern Latvia. The present article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of drinking horns and is based on a substantial dataset of drinking vessels analyzed through archaeological and statistical methods. The research integrates the results of AMS radiocarbon dating, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), stable carbon (δ 1 3 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) isotope analysis, zooarchaeological examination, and experimental investigations. This article represents the first attempt in Lithuania and the eastern Baltic region to examine the role of drinking horns within Curonian burial rites, with particular emphasis on issues of chronology and the animal species from which the horns were derived. The analyses demonstrate that the examined drinking horns were manufactured exclusively from bovid horns. On the basis of the investigations undertaken, it was possible to characterise the spatial distribution of Curonian drinking horns as well as the variability of drinking vessel assemblages. The analysis of drinking horns also offers an opportunity to discuss Viking Age beverages, the quantities of drink that the deceased may have been provisioned with for the afterlife, and the underlying motivations for such practices. Finally, the study highlights the distinctive character of Curonian funerary customs and feasting traditions.