THE PAST SOCIETIES 500 BC – 500 AD THE THE 4 PAST SOCIETIES Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences POLISH LANDS FROM THE FIRST EVIDENCE OF HUMAN PRESE NCE TO THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES THE PAST SOCIETIES POLISH LANDS FROM THE FIRST EVIDENCE OF HUMAN PRESE NCE TO THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES Przemysław Urbańczyk, editor 500 BC – 500 AD Aleksandra 4 Rzeszotarska-Nowakiewicz, editor Warszawa 2016 Published by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences www.iaepan.edu.pl This volume has been edited with respect for Polish-language geographical terms and other no- menclature. Thus, the regions otherwise known as Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Pomerania, and Silesia are here given as Wielkopolska, Małopolska, Pomorze, and Śląsk. The same goes for rivers (e.g., the Oder is found here as the Odra), personal names (not Boleslaus, but Bolesław), and so on. English translation Anna Kinecka Language editor Philip Earl Steele Typesetting and layout Bartosz Dobrowolski Cover design and photo Albert Salamon Wawrzyniec Skoczylas Artefacts on the cover photo, thanks to the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw Printed and bound by Sowa Sp. z o.o. ISBN: 978-83-63760-91-5 Work financed by the National Program for Development of the Humanities – 2012-2017 © Copyright by the authors and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences Contents 9 Preface 111 C 4 14 Bibliography 111 Pomorze in the final centuries BC 112 Introduction 113 Tough beginnings 15 C 1 115 Stability and growth 15 Societies of the younger segment of the early Iron Age in 118 Their way of life – cemeteries Poland (500–250 BC) 121 The feminine model 16 Introduction 123 Fierce warriors 18 The change. To the borders of a lowland ecumene 126 The power of iron 20 The time of change 128 Major change 34 Early connections with the Celts – southern Poland as 129 Bibliography a contact zone 38 The Jastorf world moving south 41 Autarchy and acculturation: the end of an epoch 133 C 5 44 Bibliography 133 With gold and sword. Contacts of Celts and early Germanics in central Europe. rd st 49 C 2 133 The historical background: 3 –1 c. BC 134 Introduction 49 The societies of West Balt Barrow culture, 500 BC–1 AD 136 Bastarnae and Scirii: shadows on the Black Sea 50 Introduction 141 An age of mercenaries and plunderers 52 Habitation sites – dwellings – subsistence – settlement 147 The great migration of the Cimbri and Teutones patterns 149 Lugius and Boiorix 56 Grave sites – graves – burial rite 151 The rise and the decline of the Lugian age – the start of the 69 Bibliography Vandal era 153 The North 71 C 3 158 Bibliography 71 It’s a Man’s World... 71 Germanic societies of the Jastorf and the Przeworsk 163 C 6 cultures in southern and central Poland (300 BC–10 AD) 163 Przeworsk culture society and its long-distance contacts, 72 Introduction AD 1–350 76 Societies of Jastorf culture in the Polish Lowland (4th/3rd–2nd 164 Abstract c. BC) 165 Historical background and internal dierences 88 Jastorf culture’s Gubin group societies in south-western 174 Warriors and their equipment Poland (3rd–1st c. BC) 188 Burial rite and cemeteries. Prospects for the reconstruction 93 A time of change – a time of men. Przeworsk culture of attires and social positions societies in central and southern Poland (2nd–1st c. BC) 200 Settlements 107 Bibliography 203 The economy 207 Sanctuaries and the sacral sphere 211 Recapitulation 212 Bibliography 217 C 7 307 C 9 217 The society of Wielbark culture, AD 1–300 307 Societies in the lands of Poland, from 350 AD until 500 AD 219 Definition and origin 308 Introduction – societies in the lands of Poland in the Roman 224 Settlement changes period 229 Historical interpretations 316 The beginning of change 232 The funeral rite and ritual behavior 320 The Great Migration 238 The social structure 338 Towards New Times 251 The tasks for the future 340 Bibliography 252 Bibliography 257 C 8 257 The Balt societies in Poland, 1–500 AD 258 Introduction 263 The appearance and development of Bogaczewo culture 267 On the north-eastern periphery. Sudovian culture 268 Archaeology of the landscape – settlement and economy 273 Burial customs 282 Social structure, the emergence of elites 292 Contacts and connections 299 Conclusions 300 Bibliography C 7 The society of Wielbark culture, AD 1–300 219 Definition and origin 224 Settlement changes 229 Historical interpretations 232 The funeral rite and ritual behavior 238 The social structure 251 The tasks for the future 252 Bibliography C 7 T W , AD 1–300 For over a century archaeologists have worked painstakingly to organize the archaeological material dating to the Roman period and the early phase of the Migration period discovered in northern and eastern Poland. This eort led them to identify a number of culture units, ones they separated on the evidence of funeral rite traits and selected elements of material culture, e.g., dress accessories and pottery vessel forms. At first, the names proposed for these cultures referred in a rather un- fortunate manner to the territory allegedly occupied by these units (Weichselmündungskultur, East-Pomeranian-Mazovian culture), or to the ethnic attribution of societies with which they were understood to coincide, recognized either as Germanic or proto-Slavic (‘Gothic-Gepidic culture’ or the ‘Oksywie group of Venedian culture’ respectively) (Blume 1912; 1915; Schindler 1940; Wołągiewicz 1981; Bierbrauer 1994; Mączyńska 2007; Kokowski 2010). A C ± ² 218 Definition and origin The first modern description of the archaeological situation in northern and eastern Poland in the first centuries AD was proposed not until the 1970s by Ryszard Wołągiewicz, an archaeologist based in Szczecin (cf. Wołągiewicz 1981). The name he proposed for the newly defined unit – ‘Wielbark culture’ – was intended to be neutral in character. Wielbark (German Willenberg) is the name of a village where a large cemetery is found outside the town of Malbork, fmr. Marien- burg, best known as the medieval capital of the Teutonic Knights. The reason the cemetery at Wielbark was chosen as an eponym for the cultural phenomenon of interest was its extensive chronology, which spans all the phases of Wielbark culture as well as phases predating its emergence and thus Fig. 1. Inhumation burial of a woman in the cemetery at dating to the earlier, pre-Roman period. Kowalewko in Wielkopolska. This makes the site at Wielbark one of a just small group After Skorupka 2001, photo 1 of cemeteries in central Europe which continued in use for approximately six centuries. Moreover, according to a legend long circulating among specialists, several thousand burials dating to the early centuries AD had been excavated there before World War II (i.e., when Malbork was part of Germa- ny). The recently reclaimed archival documentation helped in trimming down these exaggerated figures to ‘only’ a few hundred burials. Even so, the archaeological excavations re- sumed at Wielbark have confirmed the higher than average size of this cemetery and its exceeding value for research (Kokowski 2010: 111–112). With settlement sites investigated only to a limited extent, Wołągiewicz identified the diagnostic features of Wiel- bark culture mostly as based upon evidence from the study of cemeteries. Thus, only a fragment of the historical reality is available to us, with limited insight into the key aspects of everyday life, economic issues, and social conditions. One of the principal features of Wielbark culture is the occurrence of Fig. 2. Urned cremation burial marked on the ground with five biritual cemeteries from the 1st c., with evidence for the depo- big stones. The cemetery at Nowy Łowicz in Pomorze. sition – side by side and in the same period – of inhumation Photograph by A. Cieśliński T P S 4: 500 – 500 219 C 7 T W , AD 1–300 Fig. 3. Collective plan of biritual cemetery with eight barrows at Cecele in Podlasie. 1. Inhumation graves; 2. Cremation pit graves; 3. Urned cremation graves. After Cieśliński 2015: fig. 14 burials (mostly in pits oriented N–S, with the head towards the burial practices also feature what appears to be a reluctance north) (Fig. 1) and cremation burials of various forms: urned toward the deposition of iron objects in graves. However, this (Fig. 2) and pit burials, with and without pyre debris (Fig. 3) tendency, albeit quite noticeable, shows considerable variation, (Wołągiewicz 1981, 138, 151; Kokowski 2010: 120–124). as confirmed by diering frequencies of iron finds recorded in One unique feature of male burials is that they contain individual cemeteries. Due to the absence of military equip- no weapons; this is in stark contrast to the tradition followed by ment and tools, the quantity of objects discovered in male both the neighbouring Przeworsk population and, to a lesser graves is much smaller in comparison to the neighbouring extent, by societies from the Elbian culture complex and the regions (Wołągiewicz 1981: 138, 151–152; Kaczanowski, Zab- West Baltic culture complex. Another category of object not orowski 1988; Kontny 2008). observed in graves, unlike in other cultures in the central Another aspect of the image of male graves is the European Barbaricum, are specialized tools such as black- simplified model of their burial garb, the remains of which smith’s tools and agricultural implements. Wielbark culture mostly consist of a single brooch and some metal belt mounts. 220 D Fig. 4. Heel-band spurs from men’s graves at Czarnówko. Fig. 5. Pendants and biconical bead – golden and silver elements of a necklace from the graves at Czarnówko. After Schuster 2014: fig. 35 After Schuster 2014: fig. 59b Against this backdrop one group of male burials stands out, The described attributes of spiritual and material culture as it contains spurs; the men buried in these graves appear are limited to a rather narrow area, which fact suggests that to be warrior-horsemen (Skóra 2008) (Fig.