Chapter 13 Kujawy (Central Poland) between Antiquity and Middle Ages

Marcin Rudnicki and Mirosław Rudnicki

1 Introduction

Because of the huge popularity of amateur metal-detecting, the last ten to fifteen years have been astonishing for Polish archaeology and numismatics. Although the vast majority of metal-detector finds originate from the plough- soil and lack context, their value for research is often substantial. An excel- lent illustration are finds of Celtic coins from the region to the north of the Carpathian Mountains, their number fifteen times higher than a decade or so ago. Furthermore, most of these coins were issued by mints that operated far north of the range of coherent Celtic settlement, most notably in Kujawy.1 The activity of Celtic mints has been attested quite unexpectedly in the very heartland of the ecumene of the East Germanic Przeworsk Culture. The signifi- cance of these recent coin finds is by no means limited to numismatics. They have shed fresh light on the problem of the Celtic presence between the Baltic and the Carpathian Mountains, including the impact this presence apparently had on the cultural reality in the region over the final centuries BC, possibly even longer. Celtic coins are not the only metal finds recovered by amateur metal detec- tors. From Kujawy, Greater Poland (Wielkopolski), and from the Middle Prosna basin comes a large group of finds which even after only preliminary analysis lead us to conclude that Germanic settlement survived in these regions as late as the 7th c.2 This is an entirely new scenario, one which makes it imperative to adjust the existing terminology when speaking of the territory between the Oder and the Vistula in the period under discussion. This is because in our region the “Early Middle Ages” are still associated with the Slavs. And yet the finds discussed below are a legacy of societies with a different ancestry, most likely representing a different model of settlement. The archaeological horizon

1 Marcin Rudnicki 2012a. 2 See Chapter 18, see below.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422421_015 470 Rudnicki and Rudnicki documenting their presence should be reflected in archaeological terminol- ogy, e.g. “pre-Slavic” early medieval, or Merovingian Period. In the study of Germanic Migration Period settlement between the Oder and the Vistula, a special place is certainly occupied by new materials from Kujawy, the region of central Poland lying between the Rivers Vistula and Noteć. In physiographic terms, the most prominent part of Kujawy is the Kujawy Upland. In the geography of Central Europe in Antiquity Kujawy was of strategic significance. Here was an intersection of two important long- distance routes in Barbaricum: the so-called Amber Road,3 and a route which ran westwards down the Toruń-Eberswald ice marginal valley to the area now in eastern Germany and to southern Scandinavia, and eastwards, down the val- leys of the Vistula, Western Bug and San rivers to the Carpathian foothills and southwards to the Pontic region.4 The favourable geographic setting of Kujawy, its black earth, one the most fertile soils in Poland, and its natural resources, such as rock salt and amber,5 made this region more attractive for settlement than most. It is not surprising therefore that so many imports are recorded here, Celtic and Roman coins in particular, testifying to the prosperity and privileged position of the region’s Iron Age inhabitants. Already from the Younger Pre-Roman Period the Kujawy region stands apart from all other parts of Przeworsk Culture territory in the wealth of its mate- rial record. This is manifest not only in the sheer number of imports from the south, but also in the existence of interregional centres engaged in production and commerce. The remains of one such “central place” have been identified in the vicinity of the villages of Gąski and Wierzbiczany, in Inowrocław district. In its origins, this settlement dates back to around 100 BC or earlier.6 It may not be the only settlement centre of this kind in Kujawy. The period of prosperity started here back in the late centuries BC and continues in the archaeologi- cal record during all the phases of the Roman Period and the Early Migration Period. This prosperity is reflected in the impressive assemblage of objects re- covered over the last decade or so by amateur metal-detectorists, unequalled anywhere else between the Oder and the Vistula. It comprises from five to ten thousand Roman imports found recently, chiefly coins – mostly 2nd-century denarii; and it suggests a major change in the settlement structure in Kujawy only in the first half of the 5th c.

3 The “Amber Road” linked the Baltic Sea region with Caput Adriae. 4 The so-called “Lugian Route” (see Marcin Rudnicki 2012b, 476f.). 5 Even if the mining of amber and salt in Antiquity is as yet undocumented, it is not improbable. 6 See Kontny, Marcin Rudnicki 2016.