New perspectives of studies in the Przeworsk culture in the Lublin region – on the example of the results of interdisciplinary studies of site 5 in Nieszawa Kolonia, Opole Lubelskie district, Lublin voivodship

Abstract

The last twenty years have brought discoveries which provide a large number of sources concerning the archaeology of the Roman Period in the Lublin region. The interdisciplinary studies related to site 5 in Nieszawa Kolonia, Opole Lubelskie district, Lublin region, Poland, have generated a substantial part of these new sources. The multi-aspectual analysis of archaeological and biological sources allowed us to characterize of the economy of the dwellers of the settlement which was constituted by agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing. The relative chronology of the settlement was established, and the first stage of its functioning was determined as belonging to phase B2, until phase C1a inclusive. The second stage of the utilisation of the settlement is dated to phase C3-D1. Three instances of radiocarbon dating confirm the chronological frame established by relative dating. The presented analysis of selected archaeological sources from site 5 in Nieszawa Kolonia, especially of ceramic material, seems to confirm the possibility that in the early Roman period, in the Lublin region, especially in its western part, infiltration of Dacian cultural elements into the Przeworsk environment took place. It is undeniable that the chronology of the settlement in Nieszawa Kolonia extends beyond the established time frame assumed for the functioning of the Przeworsk culture in the Lublin region. It is possible that in the late Roman Period the history of the settlement in question is part of a series of changes that took place in the areas of Barbaricum and Roman provinces. Some of the settlers of northern origin could have returned to the former settlements. The settlement in the mesoregion of the Lesser Poland Gorge of the Vistula is of particular importance for the revision of previous interpretations of the cultural changes taking place in the Lublin region in the Roman Period and in the early Migration Period.