Datowania cmentarzy wczesnośredniowiecznych na ziemiach polskich: problemy wnioskowania
Dating of early medieval cemeteries in the Polish lands: problems of inference

Author(s): Andrzej Buko
Subject(s): Archaeology, Middle Ages, 6th to 12th Centuries, 13th to 14th Centuries, 15th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: early Middle Ages; beginnings of inhumation; initial phase of the cemetery; dating of cemeteries
Summary/Abstract: The fundamental problem in the context of research on the origins of the Polish state is the moment of its emergence in the funeral rite of inhumation. Its reception, according to many researchers, is a material correlate of the beginnings of Christianity. The conventional caesura - after 966 - is marked here by the baptism date of Mieszko I, the first historical ruler of Poland. Unsettled the question remains whether and to what extent his subjects followed in the prince's footsteps and to whom in the first place this new funeral custom concerned. The author on selected examples taken from both contemporary and medieval observations cemeteries illustrates the complex issue of dating the oldest early medieval cemeteries in Poland Polish. At the same time, he draws attention to inference errors, especially when separating their initial phases. On this sub-pond states that the thesis according to which in humation appears on Polish lands only after the year 1000 requires a critical verification.

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