ABSTRACT
The study of the Viking Age has recently intensified in the eastern areas of the Viking diaspora, including the eastern littoral of the Baltic Sea, where several new finds and improved access to the international academic arena have gradually started to change the existing vision. A closer study of pre-Viking and Viking-Age finds in the Eastern Baltic makes it possible to see different modes of overseas communication in the northern and southern halves of the region, thus shedding new light on different forms the eastern Viking expansions could take. The find of two pre-Viking-Age ship burials at Salme on the Estonian island of Saaremaa has, so far, been interpreted as the result of a failed military campaign that ended with a mass burial of fallen warriors. However, taking local burial customs and artefactual evidence into account, a different interpretation emerges. The collective ship burials coincided with an initial phase for the formation of a shared cultural sphere, made up first and foremost by warriors along the shores of the Baltic Sea. A material culture and particular burial custom which united local with foreign features were conspicuous cultural means of communication for groups of pre-Viking-period warriors and seafarers bearing similar cultural values.
