Kunterstrauch: a forgotten site in the prussian archaeology

The article by V.I. Kulakov and Zh.Yu. Kazachenko is devoted to the results of the field works carried out by the Zelenograd branch, the Baltic expedition of the Institute of Archaeology (2005). The works covered the periphery of a moraine height situated in the Trostyanka and Zelenogradka rivers interfluve (Zelenograd district, Kaliningrad region). Excavations were conducted at the kurgan cemetery in the forested locality named Kunterstrauch. The site underwent excavations as early as 1876, when in kurgan A two burials were discovered. Burial I was a female one, and burial II was a male one. The both individuals were deposited in wooden coffins lined with stones, their heads pointing E. From the kurgan the following objects were recovered: a spearhead, a knife, a half of a dirham, a pair of spurs, a stirrup fragment, a lyre-shaped shoe buckle. In the mouth cavity of the male skeleton two silver bracteates struck in the early 14th c. in Kцnigsberg were found. These finds suggest that the burial dates from the early order epoch. In 1899 a group burial of the second part of the 13th c. was excavated in the same locality. The land surveys of 2005 revealed 8 small mounds, two of them are around 1.5 m high and look as typical kurgans.