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munication with the spirit world were major ele-

ments of this religion. Carvings on rock, called rock

art, may depict the activities of Finnish shamans

seeking favors from spirits, such as requests for

hunting luck. Shamans would also intervene in

order to try to cure illnesses afﬂicting humans or do-

mestic animals.

The kin group, which was so important socially

and economically, also played a religious role. Folk-

lore evidence strongly indicates that pre-Christian

Finns did not so much worship generalized ances-

tors but rather venerated and appealed for help from

the ancestors of their own kin group. There was a

close and intense relationship between the living

community and the family cemetery. This was made

closer by the belief that babies born into the family

brought back to life in a new identity the spirits of

those who had lived before. It was a complex world-

view that suited the Finns’ annual struggle with the

not always kind forces of nature and provided them

with a great deal of psychological support. Existence

in rural Finland could easily become marginal with

one bad harvest, and extended periods of rural fam-

ine have been well documented in historic times.

See also Saami (vol. 2, part 7); Finland (vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hautala, Jouko. “Survivals of the Cult of Sacriﬁce Stones in

Finland.” Temenos 1 (1965): 65–86.

Hiltunen, Esa, Jukka Luoto. “The Development of the Cul-

tural Landscape in the Paimio River Valley as an Histor-

ical and Archaeological Problem.” In Proceedings of the

Third Nordic Conference on the Application of Scientiﬁc

Methods in Archaeology. Edited by Torsten Edgren and

Högne Jungner, pp. 443–450. Helsinki: Suomen

Muinaismuistoyhdistys, 1985. (Several other articles in

this volume describe various facets of the Paimio Proj-

ect.)

Huurre, Matti. 9000 Vuotta Suomen Esihistoriaa (9,000

years of Finnish prehistory). Helsinki: Otava, 1995. (In

Finnish.)

Huttunen, Pertti. “Early Land Use, Especially the Slash-

and-Burn Cultivation in the Commune of Lammi,

Southern Finland, Interpreted Mainly Using Pollen and

Charcoal Analyses.” Acta Botanica Fennica 113

(1980): 1–47.

Kivikoski, Ella. Die Eisenzeit Finnlands. Bildwerk und Text.

Helsinki: Finnische Altertumsgesellschaft, 1973.

———. Finland. Translated by Alan Binns. London:

Thames and Hudson, 1967.

Pentikäinen, Juha. Kalevala Mythology. Translated and ed-

ited by Ritva Poom. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1989.

Rausing, Gad. “Hunters and Agriculture.” Fornvännen 86

(1991): 255–258.

Sarmela, Matti. “Swidden Cultivation in Finland as a Cultur-

al System.” Suomen Antropologi 4 (1987): 241–262.

Schauman-Lönnqvist, Marianne, Anna-Liisa Hirviluoto,

Elvi Linturi, and Pirjo Uino. Iron Age Studies in Salo

1–2. Suomen muinaismuistoyhdistyksen aikakauskirja.

Helsinki: Finnish Antiquarian Society, 1986.

Taavitsainen, Jussi-Pekka. “Wide-Range Hunting and Swid-

den Cultivation as Prerequisites of Iron Age Coloniza-

tion in Finland.” Suomen Antropologi 4 (1987): 213–

233.

Talve, Ilmar. Finnish Folk Culture. Helsinki: Finnish Litera-

ture Society, 1997.

Tolonen, Kimmo, Ari Siiriäinen, and Anna-Liisa Hirviluoto.

“Iron Age Cultivation in South-West Finland.” Finskt

Museum 83 (1976): 5–66.

Vuorela, Irmeli. “Pollen Analysis as a Means of Tracing Set-

tlement History in SW Finland.” Acta Botanica Fennica

104 (1975): 1–48.

Zvelebil, Marek. “Iron Age Transformations in Northern

Russia and the Northeast Baltic” In Beyond Domestica-

tion in Prehistoric Europe: Investigations in Subsistence

Archaeology and Social Complexity. Edited by Graeme

Barker and Clive Gamble, pp. 147–180. London: Aca-

demic Press, 1985.

EBORAH J. SHEPHERD

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

280

ANCIENT EUROPE

THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

IRON AGE POLAND

■

FOLLOWED BY FEATURE ESSAY ON:

Biskupin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

■

As in many other areas of Europe, in Poland there

are no archaeological indications for a radical trans-

formation of Late Bronze Age societies entering the

new epoch, or Iron Age. Thus, the traditional name

“Iron Age,” inherited from nineteenth-century ar-

chaeology, stresses a symbolical threshold—the in-

troduction of a new raw material that had no imme-

diate impact on cultural development. In fact, in

Iron Age Poland, one observes a continuation of the

mainstream Late Bronze Age traditions represented

by the Lusatian culture, a culture that survived for

several more centuries. It blossomed during the

Hallstatt period, stimulated by new inﬂuences, but

did not show evidence of substantial economic or

social changes. A more immediate impact on local

societies during the Iron Age was exerted by the cli-

matic changes that marked the time, when cooling

and higher humidity shortened the growing season,

diminished crop yields, and eventually led to the

growing role of rye and barley in the diet, at the ex-

pense of wheat. One also might stress the part

played by the incursions of aggressive Scythians,

who started a long sequence of nomadic invasions

that penetrated areas north of the Carpathian

mountain belt. Still, in the traditional chronological

scheme, the introduction of iron deﬁnes the major

change from the Bronze to the Iron Ages in Poland.

HALLSTATT

The oldest iron objects (decorative pins, axes,

swords, and elements of horse harness) arrived in

Polish lands during the Hallstatt C period (750–

600

B.C.). The presence of these items was the result

of lively contacts with the south, which developed

through a growing interest in Baltic amber, sought

after in the Hallstatt civilization zone. Discoveries

of amber “stores” indicate effective organization of

trade connections. Apart from scarce iron items that

formed the most luxurious group of imports, many

bronzes appeared north of the Sudetic and Carpa-

thian Mountains together with new cultural pat-

terns. Contacts with the sub-Alpine region, howev-

er, were not equally important for all parts of

contemporary Poland during the Early Iron Age.

The Lusatian culture that almost completely domi-

nated the area had interesting subdivisions that pre-

viewed future regional developments.

In the western part of the country (Silesia, Great

Poland, and Kujavia), some dead bodies were

placed in richly equipped wooden-chamber graves.

In western Silesia skeleton burials reappeared after

a 250-year absence. Following new trends, exploita-

tion of salt (in Kujavia) and zinc-lead ores (in Upper

Silesia) began. Hallstatt handicraft models were ea-

gerly copied, which is most evident in new forms of

ANCIENT EUROPE

281

jewelry and elegant painted pottery. This was not

the case in the areas east of the Vistula River, where

imports, however numerous, did not stimulate local

producers. Still different was the situation in the

north (Pomerania), where contacts with southern

Scandinavia and northern Germany prevailed and

where the tradition of raised grave mounds sur-

vived. There is no evidence that iron-smelting tech-

nology was known in Poland during that period.

One interesting aspect of the Early Iron Age

was the tendency to build fortiﬁed settlements, ob-

served in traces dating to as early as the ninth centu-

B.C. These constructions spread over the western

regions of the Lusatian culture and, less densely, in

Pomerania. They were of various sizes (0.5–20

hectares) and typically located in positions with nat-

ural defenses, such as hills, islands, and peninsulas.

Some had a rather irregular inner layout, whereas

others were built according to very rigid plans. The

famous Lusatian lake stronghold in Biskupin, built

during the winter of 738/737

B.C. and discovered

in 1933, best represents the latter type. Its defensive

function now has been questioned, but the partially

reconstructed settlement offers insight into the so-

phisticated organizational abilities of Early Iron Age

societies. More than a hundred large houses (each

comprising 72–86 square meters) once stood along

eleven broad (wider than 2.5 meters) wood-laid

streets. Some 1,000–1,200 inhabitants lived in an

area of about 1.3 hectares surrounded by a circular

wood-and-earth wall cut by the gate, which opened

to a bridge leading to the mainland. Despite at-

tempts to view these settlements as the earliest Pol-

ish “proto-urban” structures, the strict egalitarian-

ism evident in the equal quality of all the houses

suggests instead that the inhabitants were agricul-

turalists seeking refuge during uncertain times.

The real threat came with the nomadic Scythi-

ans, who, in the late sixth and early ﬁfth centuries

B.C., directed their looting raids at southern and

central Poland. Burned Lusatian strongholds mark

several waves of their deadly raids; characteristic tri-

angular arrowheads are typical ﬁnds. The same ar-

rowheads sometimes are found in graves containing

the probable victims of Scythian warriors. An out-

standing piece of evidence of their presence is the

golden treasure from Witaszkowo in southwestern

Poland. Such a clear ethnic identiﬁcation of these

ﬁnds is supported by parallels from the steppe zone

and by Greek written sources.

This favorable situation offered a new avenue of

research for archaeologists, who eagerly started

seeking indicators of ethnicity in the material cul-

ture left by other societies. Thus, many later archeo-

logical cultures were given univocal identity corrob-

orated by historical sources. The Celts, Balts,

Germans, and Slavs successively became front-stage

actors in the processes described by archaeologists

studying the following phases of the Iron Age. This

tendency can go too far, as when even the traces of

small and mysterious tribes are looked for among

the archaeological materials. Another effect of this

attitude is the frequent application of a very simpli-

ﬁed model of culture processes to explain every

change effected by migrations.

Pomerania (north Poland), free from the Scyth-

ian threat but subject to inﬂuences from the Nordic

culture of the western Baltic region (southern Scan-

dinavia and northeast Germany), was the ﬁrst to ob-

serve the fall of the Lusatian culture, which was re-

placed by the Pomeranian culture during the

seventh century

B.C. This transformation was

marked by the appearance of new burial rites. Grave

mounds and extensive urnﬁeld cemeteries were re-

placed by small family grave sites, where rectangular

box cairns made of stone slabs housed up to thirty

cremation urns. The early phase of this culture

showed mysterious afﬁnities with Etruscan tradi-

tions, visible in house-shaped and face urns. The lat-

ter have ornaments resembling jewelry (e.g., neck

rings and pins) afﬁxed to them, or even original per-

sonal items—mostly earrings. Expansion of this new

culture toward the southeast during the Hallstatt D

period (600–450

B.C.) is connected with the disap-

pearance of collective graves and the introduction of

another new burial type—the so-called cloche

graves, where cinerary urns are covered with larger

upside-down pots.

During the same period, northeastern Poland

was “invaded” by a West Baltic Barrow culture, as-

sociated with the Proto-Balts, who kept this area for

almost two thousand years while avoiding adoption

of new ideas from their neighbors. These herders

lived in small settlements or in little lake dwellings

built on artiﬁcial islands made of several layers of

wooden logs attached by stakes. Their metals were

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

282

ANCIENT EUROPE

imported, and their dead were cremated and put in

urns covered by small mounds.

The ﬁfth century

B.C. marked the visible decline

of the mighty Lusatian culture. Large defensive ag-

glomerations disappeared, as did specialized pottery

making. There is also evidence of regression in met-

allurgy and impoverishment of grave goods. The

aforementioned Scythian attacks and climatic

changes are considered the main reasons for the de-

mographic decline and the disintegration of large

social structures. This crisis opened the way for the

Pomeranian culture to expand over most of the

lands between the Baltic Sea and the mountain belt.

It promoted broad use of iron in eastern Poland,

which had been somewhat underdeveloped earlier.

Production of bronze items achieved a very high

level of expertise. Pomeranian societies lived in

small, nondefensive settlements, where sunken huts

were typical dwellings.

PRE-ROMAN IRON AGE

In the south, “Pomeranians” met Celtic newcom-

ers, who had settled in Silesia in the fourth century

B.C. About a hundred years later the next wave of

the La Tène culture bearers settled in Little Poland.

Farther north a small Celtic colony existed in Ku-

javia. This dispersed northeastern avant-garde of the

great European civilization introduced new techno-

logical and cultural achievements—very ﬁne wheel-

turned pottery, a double-chambered oven for ﬁring

pots, production of glass, ﬁne smith techniques,

large-scale iron smelting, new decoration motifs,

coinage, new arms (long swords and helmets), and

the organization of regional cult centers (e.g., the

le˛z˙a Mountain in Silesia, known for numerous

stone sculptures). Important progress in agriculture

was made possible by improved plowing tools, ma-

nuring of ﬁelds, and rotational querns. These “Celt-

ic” settlements were rather small, and their inhabi-

tants lived in relative isolation from their

autochthonous neighbors, who seemed to ignore

the new technological offerings. Typical ﬂat ceme-

teries with skeleton burials oriented north to south

have been found to contain rich goods.

The Pre-Roman Age (earlier called “La Tène

period,” lasting from 400

B.C. to the turn of the mil-

lennium) saw important culture changes elsewhere

in Polish lands. During the third century

B.C. the

last enclaves of the Lusatian culture and the main-

stream Pomeranian culture disappeared, even

though its regional survivors lasted until the mid-

second century

B.C. Those changes were caused by

new cultural inﬂuences in the west. Along the Oder

River, as early as the early third century

B.C., Pomer-

anian societies were replaced by two groups of the

Proto-Germanic Jastorf culture, expanding from its

cradle in Jutland and northern Germany. It proba-

bly was this new inﬂuence that prompted further

development, resulting in the formation of two new

cultures.

Of these two, the Przeworsk culture was the

more successful in its territorial expansion and the

more durable (lasting more than six centuries). It

originated somewhere in central Poland in the sec-

ond half of the third century

B.C. During its early

phases it developed under the strong inﬂuence of

Celtic traditions. In Tyniec, near Kraków, there

lived a mixed Celto-Przeworsk society that intro-

duced oats into Polish lands. During this early peri-

od cemeteries were ﬂat, with simple pit graves that

usually lacked urns. Even stronger was the Jastorﬁan

impact in the north, where the Oksywie culture

formed in the lower Vistula region. It is known only

from its cemeteries, where women and men were

buried according to distinctively different rites. Cre-

mated female bones were put in simple pits, while

the males were buried in urns. Stone covers or

standing stelae are characteristic of these graves.

This culture later gave birth to the Wielbark culture,

identiﬁed with the Goths. Both Przeworsk and Ok-

sywie cultures sometimes are listed under the com-

mon name “Pit Grave culture.”

ROMAN AGE

Around the turn of the millennium the great Celtic

civilization faded away on continental Europe as a

consequence of the strikes made by the aggressively

expanding Roman Empire. This resulted in shifts of

cultural inﬂuence that stimulated development in

Polish lands. Thus, the Pre-Roman Age, dominated

by the La Tène culture, ended, and Roman Age

began, with its promotion of Hellenic-Roman tradi-

tions. A Celtic remnant legacy is evident in the tech-

nology used by the organizers of intensive iron pro-

duction centers and in the sustaining of regular

trade contacts along the route called the Amber

Road. Earlier Etruscan demand for amber was re-

placed by the still larger demand for this “gold of

IRON AGE POLAND

ANCIENT EUROPE

283

the north,” encouraged by Roman markets always

greedy for exotic products. The scope of this import

can be inferred from the sizes of amber “stores” dis-

covered along the track, for example, 2,750 kilo-

grams of amber found in Wrocław-Partynice. Dur-

ing the reign of the emperor Nero (

A.D. 54–68), a

special envoy was sent from Rome all the way to the

Baltic coast to study the origin of amber. It was

brought back to Rome in such vast amounts that

the entire Colosseum was decorated with pieces of

this precious material. Thanks to such contacts, in

the second century the Greek geographer Ptolemy

recorded the name “Calisia,” which is believed to

represent the predecessor of the contemporary

town Kalisz in central Poland.

The decline of the continental Celts allowed for

the vigorous expansion of Germanic peoples. Ger-

manic ethnicity is ascribed to two archaeologically

distinct cultures that dominated Polish lands during

the early Roman Age (

A.D. 1–150). The Przeworsk

culture expanded east and south, where it replaced

societies attached to the Celtic traditions. Its bearers

lived in small, semipermanent settlements that con-

sisted of sunken houses. Some of the cemeteries

were in use for several centuries. Most burials were

simple pit graves, but often richly equipped with

pots, tools, weapons, and adornments. Differences

in the amount of invested labor and the quality of

deposited goods indicate substantial social stratiﬁ-

cation, with dominant elite members of society bur-

ied in “princely” graves equipped with imported

status items, among them high-quality Roman

glass, silver, and bronze products. These outstand-

ing persons were buried uncremated and separated

from the common cemeteries.

Intensive connections with Roman markets that

were sending north large amounts of handicrafts

and quickly changing local fashions made possible

the construction of a very precise chronology for the

Roman Age. It is based on detailed classiﬁcation of

metal and glass vessels, terra sigillata pottery, ﬁbu-

lae (a type of brooch), belt mountings, and various

elements of arms. Similarly to objects discovered at

well-dated sites (e.g., Pompeii or brieﬂy occupied

army camps), they can be dated precisely within a

window of just twenty-ﬁve years. This makes the ar-

chaeology of the Roman Age an object of envy to

those researchers engaged in the study of earlier and

later periods and a research ﬁeld with great explana-

tion potential that has not yet been fully explored.

This chronological clarity also pertains to

studies of the northern neighbor of the Przeworsk

culture, the Wielbark culture. This culture repre-

sents societies that gave birth to the famous tribes

of Goths and Gepids, who migrated southeast in the

second half of the second century

A.D. Unresolved

questions concerning these peoples include their or-

igins (southern Scandinavia or northeastern Po-

land), the reasons for their departure (economic,

climatic, or political), and further development of

the region by the lower Vistula (demographic re-

placement or steady transformation). Expansion

and migration of the Wielbark culture enlarged the

territory occupied by the West Baltic Barrow culture

that moved toward the lower Vistula.

During the younger phase of the early Roman

Age (c.

A.D. 80–150), the new Luboszyce culture

emerged in the region of the middle Oder River. It

showed strong afﬁliations with both the Przeworsk

and the Wielbark cultures. Retreat of the latter

group toward the southeast opened the way for a

stronger inﬂuence emanating from the Elbian re-

gion in eastern Germany, which led to the forma-

tion in western and central Pomerania of the

De˛bczyno group, known for its late Roman

“princely” burials. The late material culture of this

area shows Scandinavian connections. Farther east

along the Baltic coast the West Baltic Barrow cul-

ture established subdivisions that sometimes are

identiﬁed with the tribes distinguished in written

sources as Aestii, Galindai, and Sudinoi.

A.D. 178 victorious Roman legions of the

emperor Marcus Aurelius, ﬁghting the mighty Mar-

comanni, established bases in Slovakia, thus coming

very close to southern Poland. This direct presence

lasted only three years and did not interfere with de-

velopment of the Przeworsk culture. Long and live-

ly contacts with Roman civilization, however, had

visible effects in the adoption (since the late second

century) of some technical achievements, for exam-

ple, log-frame construction of houses, advanced

goldsmithing techniques, and rotational quern

stones. The potter’s wheel and effective chamber

ovens permitted organization of large centers pro-

ducing standardized vessels. Ards with iron coulters

made possible the plowing of heavier and more fer-

tile soils, and idling of ﬁelds resulted in stability and

6: THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

284

ANCIENT EUROPE

a departure from the slash-and-burn strategy of

farming. The really outstanding aspect of the Prze-

worsk culture was its huge centers of iron smelting.

An estimated 400,000–800,000 furnaces concen-

trated on the northeastern edge of the Holy Cross

Mountains, in Mazovia and other smaller centers,

must have furnished several million kilos of iron that

surely was exported. This “industry” was based

mostly on exploitation of surface bog ores, but

there also were mines penetrating deeper sources,

with shafts dug as far down as 20 meters.

MIGRATION PERIOD

The end of the glorious Roman Age and the begin-

ning of the turbulent Migration period came with

the sudden arrival of Asiatic Huns. In 375 they at-

tacked the Ostrogoths, who had settled north of the

Black Sea, and triggered massive movements of vari-

ous peoples that led, in

A.D. 406/407, to the fall of

the Western Roman Empire and gave way to the es-

tablishment of a series of unstable Germanic “king-

doms.” The nomads themselves established their

center in the steppe zone of Hungarian Pannonia,

from where they ruled a multiethnic “empire.” Be-

fore they were defeated in 454, some of the Huns

penetrated Polish lands, which is established by

ﬁnds of their golden jewelry and characteristic large

bronze vessels. Uncertain numbers of inhabitants of

Poland took part in those turbulent events of the

Migration period, which resulted in demographic

declines and visible impoverishment of the area be-

tween the Baltic Sea and the Carpathians.

This crisis did not much affect northeastern Po-

land, settled by the West Baltic Barrow culture peo-

ples, who were stubborn in their attachment to their

own traditions. Especially interesting is the Olsztyn

group that formed in the Mazurian lake district dur-

ing the late ﬁfth century

A.D. and survived more

than two hundred years. Characteristic urns with

rectangular “windows”; horses buried under male

graves; far-reaching contacts with both western Eu-

rope and Scandinavia, as well as with the Danube re-

gion and the Black Sea zone; and the interregional

character of personal adornments make it one of the

outstanding cultures of the Barbaricum around the

mid-ﬁrst millennium

A.D.

The end of the Migration period traditionally is

set at 568

A.D. with the arrival of the Avars, a new

wave of Asiatic nomads who also chose Pannonia as

their homeland. The establishment of their new

“empire” halted the very promising sociocultural

development of earlier times and marked the begin-

ning of the ﬂourishing over vast parts of central and

eastern Europe of the Slavs and their culture.

See also Late Bronze Age Urnﬁelds of Central Europe

(vol. 2, part 5); Biskupin (vol. 2, part 6); Iron Age

Ukraine and European Russia (vol. 2, part 6);

Goths between the Baltic and Black Seas (vol. 2,

part 7); Slavs and the Early Slav Culture (vol. 2,

part 7); Poland (vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bielenin, Kazimierz. Staroz˙ytne górnictwo i hutnictwo z˙elaza

w Górach S

wie˛tokrzyskich [Ancient mining and smelting

of iron in the Holy Cross Mountains]. Kielce, Poland:

Kieleckie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1992.

Bukowski, Zbigniew. The Scythian Inﬂuence in the Area of

Lusatian Culture. Wrocław, Poland: Ossolineum,

1977.

Gedl, Marek. Die Hallstatteinﬂüsse auf den polnischen Gebie-

ten in der Früheisenzeit. Kraków, Poland: Nakładem

Uniwersytetu Jagiellon´skiego, 1991.

Godłowski, Kazimierz. Przemiany kulturowe i osadnicze w

południowej i s´rodkowej Polsce w młodszym okresie prze-

drzymskim i w okresie rzymskim [Settlement and culture

changes in southern and central Poland during the

younger Pre-Roman Age and the Roman Age].

Wrocław, Poland: Ossolineum, 1985.

———. The Chronology of the Late Roman and Early Migra-

tion Periods in Central Europe. Kraków, Poland:

Nakładem Uniwersytetu Jagiellon´skiego, 1970.

Kolendo, Jerzy. A la recherche de l’ambre baltique:

L’expedition d’un chevalier romain sous Neron. Warsaw,

Poland: Uniwersytet Warszawski, 1981.

Mierzwin´ski, Andrzej. “Zagadnienie obronnos´ci osiedli typu

biskupin´skiego: O potrzebie alternatywnej interpretac-

ji” [The problem of defensiveness of the Biskupin-type

settlements: On the need for an alternative interpreta-

tion]. Przegla˛d Archeologiczny 48 (2000): 141–151.

Nowakowski, Wojciech, and Claus von Carnap-Bornheim.

Das Samland in der römischen Kaiserzeit und sein Ver-

bindungen mit dem römischen Reich und der barbar-

ischen Welt. Warsaw, Poland: Druk; Marburg, Germa-

ny: Vertrieb, N.G. Elwert, Verlag, 1996.

Wielowiejski, Jerzy. Główny szlak bursztynowy w czasach Ce-

sarstwa Rzymskiego [The main Amber Road during the

times of the Roman Empire]. Wrocław, Poland: Osso-

lineum, 1980.

Woz´niak, Zenon. Osadnictwo celtyckie w Polsce [Celtic settle-

ment in Poland]. Wrocław, Poland: Ossolineum, 1970.

RZEMYSŁAW URBAN

CZYK

IRON AGE POLAND

ANCIENT EUROPE

285

■

BISKUPIN

Biskupin is the site of a fortiﬁed stockade lying in

west-central Poland in the lake area (Pałuki) near

the town of Z

nin. It belongs to a late phase of the

Lausitz culture (the main cultural group that covers

eastern Germany and western Poland from the Mid-

dle Bronze Age onward) and dates to the beginning

of the Iron Age.

The site was discovered in 1933 by Walenty Sz-

wajcer (Schweitzer), the local schoolmaster, who

saw timbers protruding from the water. Excavation.

which began in 1934 and continued until the out-

break of World War II, resumed in 1946 under

Józef Kostrzewski and Zdzisław Rajewski of Poznan´

University; environmental and other small-scale

work continued at the site into the 1990s. Because

of its waterlogged state, the wood was well-

preserved; this led to the recovery of an exceptional

quantity and quality of information but also led to

Fig. 1. Photo of the reconstructed gateway at Biskupin. COURTESY OF ANTHONY F. HARDING.

REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

many problems of preservation, primarily of the

structural timbers. Most of the excavation was sub-

sequently ﬁlled in to protect the remains, and a set

of reconstructions (houses, gateway, palisaded ram-

part) was erected at the site. Biskupin has become

a major visitor attraction, and it is also a center for

experimental reconstructions in ancient technology.

The site lies on a peninsula in Biskupin Lake.

The peninsula was probably originally an island

about 200 by 160 meters in extent. This area was

enclosed by a palisade of rows of stakes driven into

the ground at an angle, which served also as a break-

water. Within the palisade was a box-framed ram-

part of wood ﬁlled with earth and sand. A single en-

trance lay in the southwestern sector and was

protected by a gate tower with twin gates. A wood-

en road ran around the inside of the rampart, en-

closing a street system of eleven streets, made of

logs laid side by side corduroy style. Along the

streets lay houses, more than one hundred altogeth-

er; they were typically 9 by 8 meters in extent, built

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286

ANCIENT EUROPE

of walls of horizontal logs keyed into uprights,

which were then reinforced by pegs. The ﬂoor was

made of bundles of small branches. Each house had

an anteroom and a main room with hearth; a loft

ran over part of the main room and was reached by

ladder. Smaller animals were probably housed un-

derneath the loft, and a couple of cattle could have

been accommodated in the anteroom.

This densely packed village plan has suggested

to several scholars that Biskupin represented the be-

ginnings of urbanism on the north European plain.

Certainly the settlement must have had a popula-

tion of many hundreds (possibly even more than

one thousand), and the site offers some evidence of

craft specialization. Archaeologists have found no

indications of buildings for administration, at least

in the excavated area, which amounts to about two-

thirds of the whole. Nonetheless, the proximity of

houses and streets, packed together on a small is-

land in a lake, would have necessitated some form

of communal organization, though such proximity

would also have brought about many stresses in the

village dynamic.

According to the published reports, Biskupin

appears to have had two main phases of occupation.

In the ﬁrst phase almost all the structural timber was

oak, but in the second phase mainly pine was used,

presumably because of a shortage of oak near the

site. Since there were more than 35,000 stakes in

the palisade alone, and 8,000 cubic meters of timber

in each phase of the site, clearly the construction

represented a major drain on local woodland and a

major effort in terms of labor input and organiza-

tion.

The material from the site represents a standard

domestic assemblage of the late Lausitz culture. In

addition to large quantities of pottery, numerous

bone and stone tools, clay weights, wooden tools

(including a wheel, hoes, plowshares, and paddles),

and other organic materials, such as bundles of ﬂax,

were found. Metal objects were not so numerous,

but both bronze and iron are represented, and

bronze was worked on site. Particular houses and

areas were designated for particular tasks; thus met-

alworking debris, weaving equipment, and other

craft tools appear in some houses or open spaces but

not others.

In terms of artifact afﬁnities, Biskupin has been

variously dated to Hallstatt C, Hallstatt D, or a

combination of the two. Increasingly, however,

opinion favors Ha D. Róza Mikłaszewska-Balcer’s

(1991) discussion of the pottery from the site, in

particular the so-called pseudo-corded ornament,

makes the case that the site perhaps began life in Ha

C and came to an end at the start of Ha D: this orna-

ment, supposedly typical of Ha D, is relatively rare

as a Biskupin artifact, as are examples of encrusted

ware that also belong to that phase. Attempts at ab-

solute dating by independent scientiﬁc methods

have been only partially successful. Radiocarbon

dates obtained on samples from a small excavation

in 1981 give an apparently clear picture for the early

phase (between 850 and 800

B.C. at the 2σ level and

95 percent of the probability distribution), but the

dates fall in a wide spread for the later horizon,

where the calibration curve is ﬂat (780–470

B.C. at

2σ and 95 percent of probability distribution).

Dendrochronological work in the early 1990s on a

set of 71 oaks (that is, ﬁrst phase), comprising 166

rings including bark, spanned the period 747–722

B.C. but with a concentration of timbers felled in

738–737

B.C. The picture presented by published

plans and accounts indicates that the separation into

an early oak and a later pine phase is not clear-cut,

and especially for the second phase it is uncertain

how much construction work actually took place. A

main construction date in the later eighth century

B.C. ﬁts well with the artifactual evidence.

The site’s destruction, which seems to have

been through abandonment rather than other

causes such as ﬁre, may reﬂect environmental

change (rising lake levels), but economic and social

pressures arising from the cramped conditions and

overexploitation of critical resources may also have

played an important part.

See also Dating and Chronology (vol. 1, part 1);

Hallstatt (vol. 2, part 6).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kostrzewski, Józef, ed. III Sprawozdanie z prac wykopalis-

kowych w grodzie kultury łuz˙yckiej w Biskupinie w powie-

cie z˙nin´ skim za lata 1938–1939 i 1946–1948 [Third re-

port of excavations at the stronghold of the Lusatian

culture at Biskupin in Znin district for the years 1938–

1939 and 1946–1948]. Poznan´, Poland: Nakład Pols-

kiego Towarzystwa Prehistorycznego, 1950.

Mikłaszewska-Balcer, Róza. “Datowanie osiedla obronnego

kultury łuz˙yckiej w Biskupinie” [Dating the fortiﬁed

settlement of the Lusatian culture in Biskupin]. In

BISKUPIN

ANCIENT EUROPE

287

Prahistoryczny gród w Biskupinie: Problematyka osiedli

obronnych na pocza˛tku epoki z˙elaza [Prehistoric strong-

hold at Biskupin: Problems of fortiﬁed settlements at

the beginning of the Iron Age]. Edited by Jan Jaskanis

et al., pp. 107–113. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe

PWN, 1991.

Piotrowski, Wojciech. “50 lat badan´ w Biskupinie” [50 years

of research at Biskupin]. In Prahistoryczny gród w Bisk-

upinie: Problematyka osiedli obronnych na pocza˛tku epoki

z˙elaza [Prehistoric stronghold at Biskupin: Problems of

fortiﬁed settlements at the beginning of the Iron Age].

Edited by Jan Jaskanis et al., pp. 81–105.Warsaw: Wy-

dawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1991.

Rajewski, Zdzisław. Biskupin: A Fortiﬁed Settlement Dating

from 500

B.C.: A Guide. Rev. ed. Poznan´, Poland: Wy-

dawnictwo Poznan´skie, 1980.

Waz˙ny, Tomasz. “Dendrochronology of Biskupin: Absolute

Dating of the Early Iron Age Settlement.” Bulletin of

the Polish Academy of Sciences: Biological Science 42, no.

3 (1994): 283–289.

F. HARDING

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THE EUROPEAN IRON AGE, C. 800 B.C.– A.D. 400

IRON AGE UKRAINE AND EUROPEAN RUSSIA

■

The period between about 1000 and 0 B.C. was of

crucial importance in the history of the tribes living

in the steppe and forest-steppe zones of southeast-

ern Europe (present-day Ukraine and European

Russia). It was a difﬁcult period for the people of the

region. There were constant movements of popula-

tion, the appearance of new ethnic groups, Greek

colonization, and Roman penetration. Constant

movement and migration led new peoples and cul-

tures to appear and others to vanish. Cultures inﬂu-

enced one another, resulting in the creation of new,

unique visual art in styles such as Greco-Barbarian,

a mixture of Greek and local (non-Hellenic) ele-

ments.

This huge region forms the most westerly part

of the Great Steppe Zone of Eurasia. In the south,

the shores of the Sea of Azov (known in ancient

times as Lake Maeotis) and the Black Sea provide a

natural boundary. The northern boundary is ill de-

ﬁned, linked to the spread of the chernozem (black

earth) that is characteristic of the forest-steppe. The

Danube sets the western limit to the region, and,

conventionally, the lower Don River is the eastern

boundary. Overall the steppes are some 1,000 kilo-

meters east to west, and 500 kilometers north to

south: an area that includes the Dnieper basin and

the Black Sea lowlands. In times past, this territory

was covered in natural, grassy vegetation and for-

ests, encompassing ﬂoodplains, terraces, and sandy

areas and was watered by the Dnieper, Dniester,

southern Bug, Ingul, Ingulets, and many lesser wa-

terways. To the north of the true steppe lies the for-

est-steppe zone, containing the uplands and middle

reaches of the Dnieper and the southern Bug, and

extending to the middle Don. North of the forest-

steppe was an area of mixed forest. A characteristic

of the forest-steppe is the mixture of large tracts of

forest with woodless tracts of meadowland.

The Iron Age in Eastern Europe dates to the

early ﬁrst millennium

B.C. Throughout the steppe

areas of Eurasia, including those of the northern

Black Sea hinterland, it corresponded with the tran-

sition from sedentary, pastoral agriculture to the

nomadism of animal-rearing tribes. The numerous

steppe settlements of the Bronze Age population,

surface and dugout, had disappeared by the ninth

century

B.C.; from then until the late ﬁfth century

B.C., tribes moved their herds constantly from one

area of pasturage to another. But then the nomads

began to settle down. In contrast, the neighboring

forest-steppe zone was populated, just as in the

Bronze Age, by a sedentary population, albeit one

subject to invasion and incursion by marauding no-

madic hordes who left their mark on many features

of the life and culture of the settled population. The

local peoples who inhabited this territory had no

writing and have left no written evidence of them-

selves. We know the names of some groups thanks

to authors from the ancient Greco-Roman world

and the Near East.

THE CIMMERIANS

The ﬁrst to be mentioned in such writings are the

Cimmerians, to whom the earliest reference is in

Homer’s Odyssey, where they are described as a tribe

living in a mythical land of fog and darkness on the

ANCIENT EUROPE

289