The sky in the life of the Balts

The article analyzes spatial arrangement of the dead in plane surface burial grounds of central Lithuania which date back to the cultural layer of the 1$l-4"' centuries A.D. The research established that spatial location of the dead was a very significant detail of the burial ceremony; it expressed the then existing philosophy of life. It is proved that spatial location is closely connected with the position of the Sun, the Moon, and that of the Big Dipper during different periods of a year. This allows to presuppose that burial rituals were collated with the nearest holidays of the Baltic calendar. The research material as well as written sources give evidence that the Balts knew the art of how to preserve the bodies of the dead for a certain period of time. The orientation of the dead towards heavenly bodies was greatly influenced by the cult of certain heavenly deities, such as the Sun, the Moon, and the Big Dipper. The social origins of this Baltic deity pantheon and the strength of separate cults in the development of civilization are also being analyzed and interpreted. The research on spatial orientation of the dead revealed new possibilities for reconstruction. It allowed to assert that spatial orientation depended very much upon sex. As a consequence, there appeared a unique possibility to determine the sex of the dead what cannot be done by archaeological and anthropological methods. In addition, the regularities of spatial orientation enable to determine the sex of children. The research also revealed the death-rate dependency on seasons which conforms to opinions of medicine specialists and biologists