Kretingalės pilkapynas

Kretingalės pilkapynas is a former group of burial mounds in Kretingalė, in the northwestern part of Klaipėda district municipality, Lithuania. It lies 0,45 km southeast of the Klaipėda–Kretinga road, on the right bank of the Dangė river. The site covers 2,0017 ha and is a state-protected cultural heritage site.

The mounds stand on a rise in the Dangė valley, bordered by old riverbeds to the east and southeast and a drainage canal to the north. A bank or embankment runs along the eastern edge, with a field track crossing its top and large field boulders piled beside it. Several stones lie on the mound of the large, prominent burial mound. Some other mounds were severely damaged when their stones were removed.

Investigations were carried out by Adalbertas Becenbergeris in 1901, Linas Tamulynas in 1997 and 2002, and Arūnas Strazdas in 2012. The site was registered as an archaeological place in 2003 and recognized as a state-protected cultural heritage object in 2005. It is dated from the I millennium to the first half of the II millennium.

The mound group included several burial mounds, with three large mound heaps giving the field the name Trijų kalvų. In late XIX and early XX centuries, mounds were badly damaged by the removal of stones. Reported finds included a stone-covered grave with a covering slab and a dead person’s bones wearing a brass ring, and two cremation graves in clay urns covered with stones. The wider Baltic tradition includes early Iron Age barrow cultures and later coastal burial grounds, though many Lithuanian records concern cemeteries of small mounds rather than megaliths.

Kretingalės pilkapynas is a megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones) in Lithuania. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Lithuanian article "Kretingalės pilkapynas", shown in the original language.