Grobiņa Cemeteries: Reconsiderations of Scandinavian Influences in the Late 7th to 8th Centuries AD

This article reassesses the extent of Scandinavian-associated material culture at the Grobiņa Archaeological Complex in western Latvia during the first millennium AD. It addresses a key question: how extensive was Scandinavian-associated material culture? Drawing on a century of published reports and unpublished archival records, compiled systematically for the first time, this study uses a multi-site, object centred methodology. Rather than starting with the theory of a Scandinavian colony with maritime links to Gotland and eastern Sweden, it assesses the cemetery’s archaeological record, including burial practices, scale, and the relationship between Curonian and Scandinavian-associated artefacts. The study argues that Grobiņa was a long-established settlement in which Scandinavian-associated material culture was distinctive but not dominant before the Viking expansion after c. AD 750.