Břeclav – Pohansko VII. The Church Cemetery in the North-eastern Suburb Summary The excavation of the church cemetery in the north-eastern suburb at Pohansko near Břeclav took place be- tween 2008 and 2012 as part of long-term systematic research into the site which is considered to be on a par with the most important centres of Great Moravia. The field work followed after the unexpected and surprising discovery of an early medieval rotunda which is the second religious structure to be uncovered at Pohansko (Macháček – Balcárková – Čáp et al. 2014). The new research activities in the north-eastern suburb can be divided into three main excavation areas – the Great Moravian rotunda, the church cemetery and the adjoining residential and/or production precinct of the whole settlement area. So far, the greatest attention has been paid to the church which, after the quarter of a century that has passed since the last similar find, augmented the unique and historically valuable group of the earliest religious and stone-wall architecture within the territory of the Czech Republic. The discovery has been comprehensively covered by a number of dedicated studies (Čáp – Dresler – Macháček et al. 2010; Macháček 2011; Macháček – Balcárková – Čáp et al. 2014). The excavation of the settlement related to the church has not yet been completed and as such is only marginally mentioned in this monograph. The main focus is aimed at the cemetery where excavation work finished in 2012. The necropolis falls within the category of church cemeteries as defined by Bořivoj Dostál( Dostál 1966, 15–17), and thus belongs to the group of the most valuable funeral heritage monuments from the period of Great Moravia. Its publication signifies the end of the second stage of the most recent archaeological research in the north-eastern suburb at Pohansko. The principal aim of the present book is to publish the complete archaeological field documentation which together with the description of finds constitutes the content of an extensive catalogue. This forms the core of the whole monograph. However, alongside the above mentioned data the reader will also find an analytical and a synthetic section in the book. Detailed descriptions analyse in particular the funeral rites, the individual cate- gories of artefacts and the vertical and horizontal spatial relationships in the cemetery. The completed analyses are followed by a final synthesis of the data. During our research we strove to come to an understanding of the broader historical context behind the or- igins of the Christian church, the purpose of this shrine, social characteristics of the community, which buried its dead inside and around the church and, last but not least, to provide a detailed timeline of the events. The concrete research goals were formulated in several basic questions: In what period did burials take place in the surroundings of the rotunda in the north-eastern suburb at Po- hansko and how precisely can this interval be defined in terms of relative and absolute chronology? What was the social status of the community which buried its dead at the rotunda? Are we able to identify the inner social structure of this community? What was the role of the north-eastern suburb with the church and a cemetery within the whole of the Great Moravian agglomeration at Pohansko? What purpose did the rotunda serve? Can we link the archaeological features uncovered in the north-eastern suburb at Pohansko with concrete social processes taking place in early medieval Europe – such as the establishment of the oldest dynasties of local aristocracy? The book is the result of a collaborative effort by a great number of colleagues involved in the research from Masaryk University in Brno and other institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad. Archaeological excavation directly on the site was carried out by the staff and students of the Institute of Archaeology and Museology at 493 Břeclav – Pohansko VII. Kostelní pohřebiště na Severovýchodním předhradí the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University as part of practical instruction in field excavation, with financial sup- port from the research project of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, reg. No. P405/12/0111, and specific research tasks of Masaryk University. The research was also greatly contributed to by foreign expeditions – the University of Florida (USA) led by Professor Florin Curta and Czech American Archaeological Field School led by Dr. Michael Dietz and Dr. John Staeck from the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn (USA). The characteristics of the church cemetery in the north-eastern suburb at Pohansko near Břeclav The north-eastern suburb, where the studied cemetery is situated at Pohansko, forms an oval, slightly raised area (ca 2,7 ha), surrounded by cut-off meanders of the Dyje and its floodplain. It is the northern protrusion of a sandy-gravel elevation, strongly affected by the erosive action of the Dyje, which flows around and through the whole of Pohansko from south to north. The suburb is separated from the central part of the agglomeration by a destroyed fortification. Within the north-eastern suburb, the second church and the cemetery precinct are situated on a slight elevation being the third highest point at Pohansko after the first church in the Magnate Court and the eastern part of the suburb excavated earlier. With its 152 graves (and 154 buried individuals) the cemetery falls within the group of large cemeteries from the Middle Hillfort Period (Dostál 1966, 10). The excavated set of skeletal remains was perfectly preserved and particularly the skeletons of adult individuals were lifted with a minimum of damage or absence of parts of the skeleton. It was thanks to this very good state of preservation that the set of skeletons became the subject of intensive anthropological research, which until then concentrated on the anthropological and taphonomic char- acteristics of the population on the site. In total we identified 97 non-adult and 58 adult individuals. The largest percentage established was the Infans Ib category (i.e. between 1 and 6,9 years of life; totalling 34 % individuals). The second most frequent category was the group of adults between 35 and 49,5 years of life (totalling 19 %). On the contrary, the least numerous group were finds from the foetal period, i.e. from conception to birth (1 %). The demographic profile obtained of the age of the individuals from the cemetery at the second church does not essentially deviate from the age structure observed in cemeteries at other locations at Pohansko. Sex estimation was carried out in 88 % of cases. It shows that male graves have a higher frequency in the cemetery at the second church (56 %) than female graves (44 %) – with a resulting ratio of roughly 1,12. However, their ratio does not significantly deviate from equal frequencies of men and women. Therefore, it does not seem that it would be significantly biased to the benefit of a particular sex, although based on the statistical data in today’s population the representation of men and women is reversed. Regarding the total extent of the cemetery we can state that it has been almost completely exposed. It covers an area of roughly 710 m2, whereby from north to south it measures ca 35 m and from east to west about 25 m. It is oriented alongside the main axis of the church which runs from SW to NE. The majority of the graves also observe this direction. When burials started there the cemetery precinct was probably delimited by an enclosure of which only the palisade trench has been preserved. During the research only parts of it were identified and explored. The examined and hypothetically reconstructed corners of the trench lead towards the main points of the compass. The trench has the shape of a trapezium with sides of 20 m (SE), 19 m (SW), 18 m (NW) and 15 m (NE) and a total area of ca 336 m2. The graves are situated both inside and outside this area, respecting its north-western and south-eastern border. However, the south-western and north-eastern boundary is overlapped by several graves, which means that the enclosure served its function only in the earlier phases of the existence of the cemetery. A rectangular shape of pit clearly dominated in the graves. By their dimensions they usually match the size of the corpse. Exceptions occur very rarely at the cemetery, but when they do they are very conspicuous, such as the unusually big pits (the largest in the cemetery) with a woman interred without grave goods (H 154), in a prestigious location next to the southern wall of the church. She was very likely in direct relationship with the men and children from the interior of the rotunda. In the cemetery around the second church we register sev- eral types of grave pit construction utilizing stone and wood as the basic materials. The intentional adjustment of grave pits include complete or nearly complete stone lining around the grave perimeter (27x), lining of the pit with human bones (1x together in combination with stone), stone cases (2x), flat stone cover (five confirmed covers) and a wooden improvement of the bottom in the form of a pad/board (13x), on which either the corpse or a wooden case were laid. Only in four cases are the structures mixed, specifically stones with the negative of a wooden construction (2x), stones in combination with human bones (1x) and a stone cover with the negative of a wooden structure (1x). A combination of grave pit constructions with the primary hollow space (7x) is much more frequent. Graves containing inner construction are mostly concentrated close to the rotunda.