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Problemy i perspektywy badań paleodemograficznych nad kulturą wielbarską na przykładzie cmentarzyska w Kowalewku

100%

Chmiel-Chrzanowska M., Fetner R.

Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski

2016

vol. 38

issue 3

8-29

W historii badań nad kulturą wielbarską wielokrotnie podejmowano próby analiz paleodemograficznych. Tego typu badania prowadzone na gruncie kultury wielbarskiej polegały przede wszystkim na konstrukcji tablic wymieralności. Krytyka wysuwana w stosunku do tej metody stała się dla nas impulsem do napisania niniejszego artykułu. Kluczowe w badaniach nad śmiercią jest to, że pracując na fizycznych szczątkach człowieka, staramy się dociekać, w jaki sposób żył i funkcjonował w środowisku, społeczeństwie, kulturze. Pogrzeb i wydarzenia mu towarzyszące niosą ze sobą wiele znaczeń, które współcześnie mogą być nieczytelne. Wynika to zarówno z ograniczeń metodycznych antropologii czy archeologii, jak również z kultury, której symbole zawarte w pochówkach nie zawsze będą dla nas zrozumiałe, a także z naturalnej utraty pewnej puli informacji. W niniejszej pracy zastosowano metodę zaproponowaną przez I. Séguy i jej zespół, będącą rozwinięciem metody J.P. Bocqueta i C. Masseta. Dzięki niej możliwe stało się oszacowanie prawdopodobieństwa zgonu. Przy opracowaniu metody wykorzystano tablice wymieralności społeczeństw preindustrialnych z całego świata, pozbawionych dostępu do medycyny. Z uwagi na problem przy określaniu płci dzieci wypracowano model oparty na 167 tablicach. Jako dane wejściowe modelu wykorzystano wskaźniki: juvenility index (JI = D5–14/D20–ω), P (P = D5–19/D5–ω) oraz średni wiek osobników powyżej 20 roku życia (a20). Analizie poddano birytualne cmentarzysko kultury wielbarskiej w Kowalewku, stanowisko 12 (powiat Oborniki). Zostało ono w całości rozpoznane wykopaliskowo, zatem teoretycznie dysponujemy informacjami o całości populacji. Analogiczną analizę przeprowadzono dla wczesnośredniowiecznego cmentarzyska w Kałdusie, co umożliwiło porównanie wyników ze stanowiska Kowalewko 12 z cmentarzyskiem, na którym zmarłych chowano jedynie w obrządku szkieletowym. Rezultaty analizy zaprezentowano w tabeli 1 i zilustrowano wykresami 2 i 3. Współczynniki wyliczone dla stanowiska w Kowalewku wynoszą: JI = 0,286, P = 0,337 oraz a20 = 34,2. Prawdopodobieństwo zgonu dzieci w wieku 0–5 lat wynosi 548‰ dla populacji stacjonarnej i 490‰ dla populacji stabilnej. Prawdopodobieństwo zgonu noworodka (1q0) wynosi ok. 300‰ w obu modelach, co wydaje się typowe dla populacji preindustrialnych. Współczynniki JI oraz P obliczone dla stanowiska w Kowalewku są wysokie w porównaniu do danych modelowych dla e0 = 20 lat (model „West”) wynoszących 0,16. Wysoka wartość może być wynikiem znacznego wzrostu populacji, jest jednak również spotykana w przypadku profili katastroficznych. Może być to również skutek niedoszacowania populacji, w przypadku kultury wielbarskiej – przede wszystkim niższej liczby mężczyzn niż kobiet.

In the history of the research into the Wielbark Culture there have been numerous attempts to use palaeodemographic analyses. In most cases, that kind of analysis applied to the Wielbark Culture consisted in constructing mortality tables. Reservations about that method were an impulse for the authors to write the present article. The key element in the research on human beings’ physical remains, i.e. on death, is to find out how they lived and functioned in their environment, society, culture. The funeral and its rites convey a lot of meanings, which nowadays might be illegible. It results from methodological limitations of archaeology or anthropology, from the culture the symbols of which contained in the burials are not always clear, and from a loss of a certain amount of information. In the present article the authors have used the method suggested by I. Séguy and her team, which is an extension of the method of J. P. Bocquet and C. Masset. Thanks to that it has been possible to assess the probability of death. The method comprises the mortality tables of pre-industrial societies with no access to health care system from all over the world. On account of the difficulty in indicating the sex of children, a new model has been created that is based on 167 tables; as its input data the following indices have been used: juvenility index (JI = D5–14/D20–ω), P (P = D5–19/D5–ω) and the average age of people over 20 years old (a20). The authors have analysed site 12 (Oborniki County) of the biritual burial grounds of the Wielbark Culture. The site has been comprehensively researched, so theoretically there is a complete picture of the population. The early medieval burial site in Kałdus has been analysed in the similar way, which made it possible to compare the results of site no 12 with the cemetery where only the skeleton rite was used. The results have been presented in Table 1 and illustrated with Diagrams 2 and 3. The indices for the site in Kowalewko are: JI = 0.286; P = 0.337; and a20 = 34.2. The probability of children’s death aged 0–5 years is 548‰ for the stationary population and 490‰ for the stable population. The probability of a newborn’s death is about 300‰ in both models, which seems typical of the pre-industrial populations. The indices JI and P for the site in Kowalewko are quite high in comparison to the model data of e0 = 20 years (Model ‘West’), which equals 0.16. The high value may result from a significant increase in population, but it also occurs in catastrophic profiles. It may also be a result of underestimating the population, in the case of the Wielbark Culture – by an inferior number of men compared to women. Higher values of these coefficients may be the result of a significant increase of fertility or catastrophic events. They also can be a result of underestimating the number of individuals on the cemetery. It allows to bypass the problem of underestimation of children. In the case of the Wielbark Culture it seems that part of the males were buried outside the cemetery or in a way that does not allow a credible anthropological analysis (for example cremation). The disproportion between the number of women and men indicates a significant underestimation of the adults on the cemetery in Kowalewko. The differences in results of probability of death between the sites in Kowalewko and Kałdus can be explained by different fertility or environmental stress. However, it seems more likely that they are the result of disturbances in the representation of different age categories on the cemeteries. Palaeodemographic research on the Wielbark Culture is very difficult and it is not always possible to obtain reliable results. The main problems of that kind of research include poor state of bones preservation, cremation and cultural influences. As an effect in palaeodemographic research we miss a big part of the population. As a consequence, the conclusions about palaeodemographic structures may contain errors.

Opracowanie antropologiczne szczątków ludzkich z wczesnośredniowiecznego cmentarzyska rzędowego w Gołuniu, stan. 23/24, woj. wielkopolskie

80%

Wrzesińska A.

Studia Lednickie

2015

vol. 14

177-237

The Early Medieval cemetery in Gołuń is archaeologically dated to the period from the end of the 10th c. to the mid-11th c. (Małgorzata Talarczyk-Andrałojć in this volume). The span of use of the cemetery was about 50 years. In the nearest neighbourhood there is no other uncovered and examined cemetery from this period. Only in the second half of the 11th c. did two cemeteries in a close vicinity commence to exist next to each other — Dziekanowice Site 2 and Dziekanowice Site 22. Both are situated on the eastern coast of Lake Lednica (to the north, c. 10 km from Gołuń). The anthropological analysis first of all concerned the age and sex assessment (of adult individuals) (Table 1), the structure of deaths for the examined cemetery (Table 2) and the reconstruction of intravital body height, done individually for each adult individual (Table 5; Table 6). Based on measurements of the long bones of the upper and lower limbs, the average intravital body height of the examined individuals was reconstructed. It was found that the inhumation burials and stray human bones belong to no less than 54 individuals. The bones of 5 individuals were found in 2007, while the bones of another 49 individuals were discovered in 2011 (Table 1). The group of children’s burials was composed of 10 skeletons (or skeleton fragments). Among these, 7 died at the age of Infans I, while three — at the age of Infans II (for one individual the age was assessed as 13–15 years, i.e., the end of Infans II and the beginning of Juvenis). 4 burials were classified as juvenile persons (the age of Juvenis): 3 of these were female burials and 1 was a male burial. 13 individuals died at the age of Adultus: 3 females and 10 males. Yet another burial was that of a woman who died at the age of Adultus–Maturus. 13 individuals died at the age of Maturus: 4 females and 9 males. One man died at the age of Maturus–Senilis. 7 persons: 3 females and 4 males died at the age of Senilis. Gender was assessed for 39 adult or juvenile individuals. 14 female individuals and 25 male individuals were isolated. For 5 individuals their age was assessed as “Adult” (Table 2). The state of health of the examined group can be assessed, with some approximation, on the basis of the changes which have come into existence in the bones [Gładykowska-Rzeczycka, Sokół 2000]. In the group of analysed skeletons, lesions of disease were found within 34 skeletons (Table 1), more often in male than female ones (22:10). Two skeletons with recorded lesions of disease belonged to children (Table 1). The bone material was measured using the anthropometric technique. Individual results for each person are offered in the Tables. A poor state of preservation of the bone material rendered most measurements impossible. The obtained results of intravital body height, separately for women and men, were compared with data for various Early Medieval skeleton series from the territory of Poland. The average height of female individuals (157.9 cm) and male individuals (169.3 cm) buried in the cemetery in Gołuń displays the greatest similarity to a series from Dziekanowice 2 (women 157.0 cm, men 170.1 cm) [Henneberg, Puch 1989: Table 7, p. 153]. We can assume that the group buried in the cemetery in Gołuń was remarkable for their considerable body heights. These values are higher than the average value of this trait in the Early Middle Ages in Poland (men — 165.7 cm, women — 153.6 cm) [Stolarczyk, Lorkiewicz 1993]. Thus, the body height of individuals from this population was above the average in this period. Thanks to the detailed anthropological analysis of the examined bone remains, it was possible to carry out a reconstruction of mortality processes in the group from Gołuń. The distribution of mortality of the examined group (Table 9) diverged from the mortality model which is typical for prehistoric populations [Henneberg, Strzałko 1975; Piontek 1979]. What is absent are evenly distributed frequencies of mortality of the adult individuals, and the frequency of mortality of children too is low (18.5%). If one assumes, however, that this is a reflection of the actual mortality conditions in the examined group, it would be necessary to state that the group from Gołyń does not significantly differ from other groups from the territory of Poland in terms of their biological condition. Differences in values of individual measures, i.e., the percentage of individuals who lived until the age of x (lx), the probability of death (qx), and the average further continuation of life of an individual at the age of x (eo x) (Table 9 and 11), confirm the observations of Janusz Piontek [1979] on the considerable diversification of biological conditions of local groups in historical periods. The anthropological analysis of even such a small and poorly preserved group can be a valuable contribution to the reconstruction of the structure and the age of the dead and the reconstruction of the biostructure of this population. Based on the nature of the changes, we are able to say that in spite of the fact that in a majority of cases the dead suffered from childhood diseases related to periodical malnutrition, they belonged to a “wealthy” group, whose living conditions were at least good. The adult population rather suffered from diseases progressing with age than from too onerous physical labour.

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1 Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski

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1 Chmiel-Chrzanowska M.

1 Fetner R.

1 Wrzesińska A.

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1 2015

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Problemy i perspektywy badań paleodemograficznych nad kulturą wielbarską na przykładzie cmentarzyska w Kowalewku

Opracowanie antropologiczne szczątków ludzkich z wczesnośredniowiecznego cmentarzyska rzędowego w Gołuniu, stan. 23/24, woj. wielkopolskie