Remains of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement in Bożejewice, site 58, Mogilno district

Abstract

Site no. 58 is located approx. 15 km south of Inowrocław, between Ciechrz and Sławsk Wielki, in the east part of the Gniezno Lakeland, called Mogilno Lakeland (Fig. 1). The
site was discovered in 1976. A rescue archaeological survey was undertaken in 2008 in connection with the planned construction of a wind power station in the area. During the works carried out at the site, 1954 m2 of surface area was researched. Five anthropogenic and natural layers as well as 4530 features from the Early Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, Late Middle Ages and modern times were discovered (Fig. 2). Only 136 features related to the settlement of the Lusatian culture’s population have been recorded. Among them, fire-places, household pits (Fig. 3–6), dugouts and relics of wooden buildings were discovered (Fig. 2: I–V). In the cultural layer as well as in features were found: 3238 pottery fragments (Fig. 7: 1, 4–11; 8–9), 2 parts of ceramic spoons (Fig. 7: 2–3), numerous
pieces of the clay isolation with imprints of cereal grains, grass (Fig. 11) and wooden construction elements. The presented source materials corresponds to the other Lusatian culture inventories from the Kuyavia and the Greater Poland from dated on the end of the V period of the Bronze Age and the HaC Period (ca. 700–500 BC). Only a cluster of vessels (Fig. 10) discovered in the ceiling of the feature no. 485 documents the interest in this area at the end of the HaD period (ca. 500–400 BC), during Lusatian-Pomeranian cultural transformation.
This collection is complemented by a lot of bone and stone tools (Fig. 12) as well as by abundant bones of cattle, pigs, sheep (and probably goats), horses, dogs, wild boars,
hares, weasel, birds, fish and mussels. These last ones may have been used as animal feed. Fragments of the human bones with traces of the burning and breaking were discovered in the features 146 and 313 (Fig. 13, 14). Human remains treated in this way are more and more often discovered in the remains of defensive and open settlements in the Kuyavia, the Chełmno Lakeland, in the Valley of the Lower Vistula and the Iława Lakeland. These
customs – more recently interpreted as an element of exclusion of selected individuals from the local community – are an influence from the Hallstatt culture circle.
The presented results of the research are another interesting contribution to the knowledge about the settlement of the local Lusatian culture and Pomeranian (Cist Grave) culture communities in the Ciechrz–Sławsk Wielki microregion (Fig. 15) in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.