Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:09:31.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Tool-kits and Burial Rites: The Case of the Janisławice Mesolithic Grave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Andrzej Jacek Tomaszewski
Affiliation:
National Museum of Archaeology, Warsaw
Richard Willis
Affiliation:
40 Haughton Green, Darlington DL1 2DF

Extract

In the autumn of 1936, a prehistoric grave was discovered near the village of Janislawice, Skierniewice Voievodom, central Poland, by two local farmers whilst digging for gravel. The grave was located on the north bank of the Lupia River (a tributary of the Bzura River), 13m above the river valley and 159 m above OD. It was dug into gravelly-sandy fluvioglacial deposits of the penultimate glaciation, on the slope of a kame hill (fig. 1). Although the grave was partially damaged in the discovery, in April of the following year the site was investigated by K. Jazdzewski, from the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw. A stratigraphic sequence was recorded, and the skeleton and a variety of grave goods were excavated.

The single skeleton had been placed in a sitting position, the legs outstretched and the back leaning against the wall of the grave pit. Red ochre powder was also probably present in small quantities in the fill. The skeleton was that of a man, aged about 30, having a ‘robust’ build and showing craniometrical similarities to modern Lapp populations (Steslicka-Mydlarska 1954).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albrethsen, S. E. & Brinch Petersen, E. 1976. Excavation of a Mesolithic cemetery at Vedbaek, Denmark. Acta Archaeologica 47, 128.Google Scholar
Brinch Petersen, E., Juel Jensen, H., Aaris-Sorensen, K. & Petersen, P. V. 1982. Vedbaekprojektet. Under mosen og byen. Sollerodbogen.Google Scholar
Chmielewska, M. 1954. Grob kultury tardenoaskiej w Janislawicach, pow. Skierniewice. Wiadomosci Archeologiczne 20, 2348.Google Scholar
Cyrek, K. 1978. Nieznane zabytki z grobu w Janisławicach woj, skierniewickie i nowe obserwacje nad tym zespolem. Wiadomosci Archeologiczne 43, 213–26.Google Scholar
Cyrek, K. 1980. Eine bisher unbekannte Methode der Mikrolithen-Produktion. Veröffentlichungen des Museums für Ur-und Frühgeschichte Potsdam 14/15, 285–88.Google Scholar
Cyrek, K. 1984. Wyniki sprawdzajacych badan terenowych na mezolitycznym stanowisku w Janislawicach, woj. skierniewickie. Sprawozdania Archeologiczne 36, 1520.Google Scholar
Cyrek, M. & Cyrek, K. 1978. Nowy sposob produkcji zbrojnikow. Sprawozdania Archeologiczne 30, 275–79.Google Scholar
Cyrek, M. & Cyrek, K. 1980. La sepulture Mesolithique de Janisławice. Inventaria Archaeologica 44, 273.Google Scholar
Finlayson, W. L. 1989. A Pragmatic Approach to Functional Analysis. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Garwood, P., Jennings, D., Skeates, R. & Toms, J. (eds), 1991. Sacred and Profane: Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion, Oxford 1989. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology.Google Scholar
Grace, R. 1989. Interpreting the Function of Stone Tools: the Quantification and Computerisation of Microwear Analysis. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grace, R. 1990. The limitations and applications of use-wear analysis. In Gräslund, B., Knutsson, H., Knutsson, K. & Taffinder, J. (eds), The Interpretative Possibilities of Microwear Studies, 914. Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Kozłowski, S. K. 1964. Uwagi o poznym paleolicie i mizolicie wschodniej czesci Kotliny Sandomierskiej. Archeologia Polski 9, 325–50.Google Scholar
Kozłowski, S. K. 1972. Pradzieje ziem Polskich od IX do V tysiaclecia p.n.e. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszlawskiejo.Google Scholar
Kozłowski, S. K. 1989. The Mesolithic in Poland. A New Approach. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.Google Scholar
Larsson, L. 1988. The Skateholm Project I. Man and Environment. Skrifter utgivna av Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund, 79.Google Scholar
Larsson, L. 1989. Late Mesolithic settlements and cemeteries at Skateholm, southern Sweden. In Bonsall, C. (ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe, 367–78. Edinburgh: John Donald.Google Scholar
Lasota-Moskalewska, A., Kobryn, H. & Swiezynski, K. 1985. Zabytki pochodzenia zwierzecego z groby mezolitycznego w Janislawicach, woj. skierniewickie. Archeologia Polski 30, 287309.Google Scholar
Péquart, M. & Péquart, St.-J. 1929. La nécropole Mesolithique de Téviec (Morbihan). Nouvelles découvertes. L'Anthropologie 39, 373400.Google Scholar
Sala, L. 1986. Use-wear and post-depositional surface modifications: a word of caution, Journal of Archaeological Science, 13, 229–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schild, R., Marczak, M. & Krolik, H. 1975. Pózny Mezolit. Wrocław: Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Historii Kulturg Materialnej.Google Scholar
Steslicka-Mydlarska, W. 1954. Szczatki ludzkie znalezione w grobie tardenoaskim w Janisławicach, pow. skierniewice. Wiadomosci Archeologiczne 20, 4966.Google Scholar
Sulgostowska, Z. 1985. Nowy oblupien z grobu mezolitycznego w Janisławicach. Wiadomosci Archeologiczne 50, 148.Google Scholar
Sulgostowska, Z. 1990. The Janisławice burial from Poland: radiocarbon dating. Mesolithic Miscellany 11(2), 25.Google Scholar
Szymaczak, K. 1982. Styl technologiczny wiorow krzemiennych. Badania na przykladzie poznomezolitycznych zespolow kultury janislawickiej i chohnicko-pienkowskiej. Wiadomosci Archeologiczne 47, 131–41.Google Scholar
Thorsberg, K. 1990. The meaning of microwear data. In Grässlund, B., Knutsson, H., Knutsson, K. & Taffinder, J. (eds), The Interpretative Possibilities of Microwear Studies 4752. Uppsala: Societas Archzaeologica Upsaliensis, Aun 14.Google Scholar
Tomaszewski, A. J. 1986. Metoda skladanek wytworow kamiennych i jej walory badawcze. Archeologia Polski 31, 239–77.Google Scholar
Tringham, R., Cooper, G., Odell, G., Voytek, B. & Whitman, A. 1974. Experimentation in the formation of edge damage: A new approach to lithic analysis. Journal of Field Archaeology 1, 171196.Google Scholar