Download PDF | The Archaeology of Early Medieval Poland_ Discoveries, Hypotheses, Interpretations , By Andrzej Buko , Brill 2008.
541 Pages
INTRODUCTION
The Early Middle Ages are often portrayed as the obscure ‘Dark Ages’, but they were also a time of fascinating large-scale changes on the map of Europe. The period between the 6th and 10th centuries is a turning point in European history but still insuf ciently known. This was the long period of the collapse of the Roman civilization and simultaneously of the growth of Byzantium, the natural successor of the Roman Empire. It was also the time of the spread of the great modern cultures and religions, development of crafts and of the new type of feudal economy, decline and creation of many states and foundation of hundreds of early town centers. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, the continent was settled by the peoples who would give rise to the modern nations and the European civilization.
The changes affected various spheres of life. The most important one was the great population and cultural transformation. Europe became divided into a Roman zone (represented by the Byzantine Empire lasting more than 1000 years), a German part (giving rise to the states of western Europe), and a Slavic part, the successors of which are the inhabitants of the central and eastern Europe, including modern Poland. The nomadic peoples who looked for a place in Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages fared much worse. Many of them, who for a time were huge powers, such as the Avars or Khazars, had become forgotten before the Medieval period was over. Others, like the Proto-Bulgarians, after their contact with the local population, became part of the Slavic world before the 10th century. Only the Magyars, who occupied the Carpathian Basin and the Pannonian Plain in the late 9th century, retained their linguistic and cultural identity, although due to the complex processes of acculturation it is now hard to see in them the descendants of the militant nomads.
Finally, at the northern periphery of the continent, viewed as a land of darkness and monsters terrifying for the man of the Middle Ages, there existed the Balts and the Ugro-Finns. In ideological terms, the introduction of Christianity was a signicant turning point. The Mediterranean peoples were the earliest to come into contact with Christianity. Christianity became the of cial religion in the area of the Roman Empire due to the decision of Emperor Constantine the Great in the early 4th century. In the 5th century, the Germanic people, including the Salian Franks, became acquainted with it. In the 9th century, the Christian missions reached the Slav groups living to the south of the Carpathians and to the Scandinavian peoples. However, in the large expanses of Central Europe, including Poland, the adoption of a new religion was connected with a political breakthrough, which consisted in the origin of new states of the New Europe in the 10th century.
The processes and phenomena typical for these times of change were reected in the life of the populations inhabiting the area of the former barbaricum, including also the area which is now Poland. Many novelties, especially in the sphere of monumental architecture, sacral art or culture of the higher social strata, did not differ signi cantly from the Carolingian or Ottonian model known elsewhere in Europe. In the early phase of the Polish state, many works of art were created by the representatives of the elites of the European christianitas. However, Poland of the times of Mieszko I and Bolesaw I (The Brave)—the rst rulers recorded in history—also retained its unique character in many spheres of life.1 The Early Medieval archaeology of Poland, which is the subjectmatter of this book, sheds light on the origin and development of the cultural processes and phenomena taking place in the region over a period of seven hundred years. At that time in the territory of modern Poland there took place the great transformation from the settlement processes characteristic of Antiquity to those of the early Slav period. Within this period occurred the change from the proto-state (tribal) to early state organizations.
These caesurae de ne the period which is the subject of archaeological research. The key themes include the origins of Early Medieval settlement in Polish territory. The question of the settling eastern and central Europe by the Slavs has been the subject of a number of controversies; the material evidence for these people is slight and unclear in its interpretation. An important topic of reection in this book concerns the time when the rst proto-state structures were formed. One of the key issues is to establish when the tribal elites appeared and what part they played in organizing the local communities. This is the background for the analysis of the relations between the pagan pre-Polish communities with their Christian surroundings. The tribal period was also the time when the peoples inhabiting various Polish lands lost their anonymity and appeared under various names in Arabic, Byzantine and Frankish chronicles. Another broad subject of research are the origins of the Polish state and its main centers. Due to the scarcity of written sources, the archaeological data play here a valid, and sometimes denitive, part and the possibilities in this respect have increased considerably in the recent decades. This is due not only to the intensi cation of eld research but also to the new possibilities of dating archaeological sites thanks to the application of dendrochronology (tree-ring dating methods) on a larger scale than before.
The archaeologists studying the Polish Early Middle Ages have achievements of various kinds, some of them, however, are of particular importance and they will be the focus of the greatest attention. These include the famed discoveries, but also some which were later forgotten, which have split the scientic milieux. Also the problems which have been for many years the topics of discussions and polemics will be presented. The reader will nd opinions in this book which undermine the xed schemes of thinking and open new cognitive horizons. Although in many cases it is too early to come to any de nitive conclusions, it is worthwhile to present, or in some cases, to outline, the prospects of further research. As there are many issues deserving presentation, the ones discussed in the chapters below are rst and foremost the author’s own choice from among the many other possible ones. The territorial scope of this book is the area within the modern borders of Poland. The regions of Warmia and Mazuria in the northwest, that is, the lands occupied by the Balts in the Early Middle Ages, are excluded.
This means that the area considered here is broadly similar to the territory of the Poland of the rst Piast monarchy. The chronology of the Early Middle Ages adopted for this book embraces the period between the 6th and mid-13th century. The date chosen for the beginning of the period is similar to that of the chronological framework adopted for the Early Medieval period in most western European countries. The end of the period is much later than that used in many other countries. This is in accord with the tradition adopted in Poland, where the Early Medieval period is seen as extending far beyond the 10th century (which for western Europe sees the end of the stage of forming and consolidation of state structures).
The idea of this publication arose on the basis of the lectures and seminars which I have been conducting at the Institute of Archaeology of Warsaw University since the mid-1990s within the thematic bloc Archaeology of the Early Middle Ages. An important part in its creation was also due to my active participation in several large projects of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of Polish Academy of Sciences. Although the book is meant mainly for students, archaeologists and historians, I hope that it will appeal to a much broader audience. I have seen many times how heated debates and interest may be inspired by the issues presented below in the regions (‘small homelands’) which they concern.
This is probably because though they refer to things now forgotten, they still matter to the people who live in those regions. Perhaps also because they are so interesting they are worth knowing about. Finally, a few words are necessary about the structure of the book. The rst two chapters deal with the selected aspects of the history of archaeological investigations of the Early Middle Ages in Poland (Chapter 1) and the methodology of Medieval archaeology (Chapter 2). The next chapters are organized chronologically and thematically. The chapters arranged according to the former are Chapter 3 (concerning the origins of the Slavs), Chapter 4 (about the proto-state period) and Chapter 9 (on the origins of the Polish state). Each of the main chapters is supplemented with auxiliary ones.
They present selections of the most interesting discoveries or issues particularly worth presenting. In this respect Chapter 3 posed considerable difculties due to the limited amount of evidence available, but in the case of the other ones, the possibilities were much richer. Thus, apart from in Chapter 4, the pre-state (tribal) period is also discussed in Chapters 5–8 and the archaeology of the early state period, in Chapters 10–15. This book could not have been written without the kindness of many of my colleagues and also collaborators. This concerns both their critical remarks about the respective chapters of the publications and their actual help in completing and preparing the illustrative material. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of them, especially to Maciej Trzeciecki for his work on digital processing of the illustrations.
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