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Archaeologists in Poland have discovered hundreds of metal objects deposited in a lake by a Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age community.
The site of Papowo Biskupie is located in north-central Poland, in an area that was once home to a large lake. Its inhabitants were members of the Chełmno group, one of the northernmost communities of the Lusatian culture that existed in Central Europe c.1300-500 BC.
Although ritual deposition of metal objects, which became increasingly common across Europe in this period, is known to have been practised among the Lusatian culture, it was long thought that such practices did not have the same significance for the Chełmno group people. However, new finds are forcing us to re-evaluate this conclusion.
In early 2023, metal-detectorists began to unearth deposits of metal objects in the dried-up lakebed at Papowo Biskupie. Rescue excavations conducted by the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Toruń revealed 550 bronze artefacts, and remote-sensing indicates that there are probably further metalwork deposits to be found. The objects discovered are mostly pieces of arm- and neck-jewellery, including one particularly impressive example of a multi-layer necklace with oval and tubular beads, swallow-tail pendants, and a single glass bead that can be traced back to the Eastern Mediterranean. Among the other finds are nail-like earrings, which probably originated from today’s western Ukraine, as well as horse paraphernalia, metal waste, a flint spearhead, and antler artefacts, including one that had been fixed in an iron socket and decorated with leaded bronze inlays. Palaeoenvironmental research suggests that the artefacts were deposited during the seasonal waterlogging of the fen, and also that the bronze offerings had been placed in baskets made of birch bark and lined with moss.
In the same area, archaeologists identified the skeletal remains of at least 33 human individuals: encompassing infants, children, and adults of both sexes, although none aged over 50. The skeletons do not display any direct evidence of perimortem violence, but the bones are extremely disarticulated and fragmented, and the context of the site and its similarities with others in the region does suggest a possible connection to sacrificial practices. Apart from a few potsherds, no accompanying artefacts have been found with the human bones.
Radiocarbon dating of these discoveries reveals that the events evidenced by the human remains (c.1040-780 cal BC) appear to have taken place earlier than the metal depositions (c.760-410 BC). The researchers therefore suggest that this may reflect a transition from human sacrifice to metal votive offerings between these periods. It also indicates that, contrary to what we previously believed, the ritual practices of the Chełmno group people did in fact come into line with those of the rest of the region later on.
These discoveries reveal that Papowo Biskupie was clearly a place of ritual significance for the Chełmno group – and dramatically changes our understanding of what this meant for the community – as well as being one of the most important ritual sites from the Lusatian period found to date in Poland. The preliminary research has been published in Antiquity (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.198).
Text: Amy Brunskill / Images: A Piasecka; A Fisz
