Professor Marija Gimbutas’ Adventure With Prehistoric Amber and the Results for Us

Abstract

This article is dedicated to Gimbutas’ approach to prehistoric amber and the results of her hypothesis for 21st-century archaeology. Amber is one of the constant threads in her research but hypotheses about amber have yet to be summarized. It is our aim to discuss the assessment of Gimbutas’ studies of amber in a non-exhaustive format, which can help to understand the focal points of her research, especially the chronological changes of amber utilisation from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. We w will discuss Gimbutas’ proposals in respect to the amber routes and interpret her ideas from the perspective of recent research. We will also discuss the question of the possible utilisation of amber from western Ukraine’s Klesov deposit, which is very similar to succinite. This article focuses especially on the question of how we can understand the meaning of amber in the Bronze Age and suggests the idea that amber had a symbolic rather than economic value in the local Eastern Baltic societies. Keywords: prehistoric amber, intercultural exchange, succinite, aDNA, symbolic value.