Settlement In Poland Research Articles

German minority in urban space of a textile manufacturing centre: the case of 19th century city of Łódź

German settlement in Poland has been the subject of numerous studies. The causes and determinants of migratory movements have been discussed extensively, while little attention has been paid to the spatial aspects of the phenomenon. The aim of this study, which is part of geographical and historical research, is to determine the size of the influx of migrants of German nationality into the rapidly developing textile production centre of Łódź in the 19th century, as well as the geographical origins and distribution of this nationality group in the urban space. These considerations are complemented by the identification of key issues related to the social integration and assimilation processes of the German minority. In the first half of the 19th century, the influx of skilled labour, almost entirely recruited from the German population, conditioned the development of the textile industry in Łódź. It also had a key influence on the demographic development of Łódź, which soon became the largest centre of textile production in Poland. In subsequent decades, there was a tendency among German immigrants towards separation in the sphere of professional and social activities, but already by the end of the 19th century the German community settled in Łódź was diverse in terms of the sense of nationality. In addition to a certain proportion of the immigrants who were already Polonised, there were persons declaring German nationality, as well as those undecided about the issue.

Research on Medieval Settlements in Poland: A Brief Overview of Methods, Theories and Research Challenges

Research on Medieval Settlements in Poland: A Brief Overview of Methods, Theories and Research Challenges

Isotopic metal compositions of Viking and medieval tin artifacts from Poland reveal expansive trade network

The lack of historically known tin deposits in Poland requires that the source of tin metal in ancient artifacts must be derived from foreign sources. To identify these external sources in the Viking Period, a combination of Pb and Sn isotope compositions and trace element analyses on a group of tin and tin rich alloys from three settlements in Poland was conducted. The integration of the chemical techniques reveals several sources for the tin rich artifacts, where group: 1) possesses Pb isotope values that overlap the Europe array which possess the highest (+1.6 ‰) and lowest (−1.1 ‰) Sn isotope values coupled with elevated In concentrations 2) has Pb isotope values that overlap the Slovakian array which possess lower Sn isotope values (+0.1 ‰ to + 0.3 ‰) coupled with low In and Te concentrations 3) has a Pb isotope value that is radiogenic which possesses a high Sn isotope value (+1.1 ‰). Group 1 artifacts are split into two sources designated by the higher Sn isotope values from Cornwall and the lower Sn isotope values from Brittany and are found in the two coastal settlements. Group two artifacts match a Slovakian origin, while one artifact labeled in group three possesses an Anatolian source. Defining the tin rich artifact sources allows constraint of the tin sources for the mixed alloys like bronze and pewter. In this instance the tin isotope values fall within two sources defined by the tin metal artifacts, Brittany and Cornwall. The chemical approach presented here defines distal metal sources to reveal a geographically expansive interconnected tin trade network that was predominantly European, in Viking times through chemical analysis of ornaments, coins, and beads.

Emigracja kaszubska: Zjawisko, ludzie, ośrodki [The phenomenon of the Kashubian emigration, its people, and their centers of community life

There are so few books being published about Kashubia in the last several years that this edited volume is a very welcome addition. Professor Daniel Kalinowski has assembled a team of scholars and distinguished leaders from Poland, the United States, and Canada who together cover a vast array of interesting subjects connected with the Kashubian experience. The work itself is well-titled as “the phenomenon of the Kashubian emigration, its people, and their centers of community life.”Kashubia itself is a region in northern Poland. The Kashubian or Kashub population is distinctive in a number of ways. The members have their own language and customs. The group has indeed existed for more than a thousand years. (In 2011, the Polish government reported that Kashubians, 82 percent of them rural residents, numbered about 110,000 in all. This recognition made them Poland's second largest ethnic minority—out of 14 in all. Only ethnic Germans, with 145,000 members, were larger.)This volume contains nine academic articles. Six are in Polish and three in English. A number of personal interviews from Kashubians are also included. Contributions discuss Kashubian settlements in Poland, in Canada, the United States, Brazil, and New Zealand. In addition, there are seven reprints about Kashubians and their culture from publications reaching back to 1889.It is impossible in a review to provide anything like an adequate characterization of the richness of the data provided by the contributors that is to be found in this publication. In the work one learns about the settlement experiences and historic hardships of Kashubian immigrants, most all of them men and women who were originally farmers, in such diverse localities as Canada, especially the town of Wilno, the United States, New Zealand, Brazil, and Germany. We read of cultural differences between them and the native populations they came into contact with, as well as immigrants from other parts of Poland. We are introduced to the language differences between the Kashubians and other Poles (for example, the “United States” in Polish is Stany Zjednoczone, in Kaszubian it is Zjednone kraje).We read of their most prominent leaders, most of them priests, including Paul Rhode, who became a prominent bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, Felix Burant, a dedicated leader in the Polish American Congress’ work to resettle thousands of Displaced Persons from Poland after World War II, and Paul Breza, a founder of the Kashubian Museum in its “capital,” Winona, Minnesota.We learn of the size and significance of the Kashubian migrations, especially in the United States, which became home to 90,000 men and women before World War I and whose efforts led to the creation of a number of churches, community organizations and an early and influential publication in Winona, Wiarus. Of special note is the saga of the Kashubian fishermen's squatters settlement on Jones Island on Lake Michigan, on the shore of the City of Milwaukee.We learn of the Kashubians’ assimilation into both the Polish culture in America and into the American mainstream. (Here the story of the Kashubians’ integration into American life is presented in a novel way—by looking at the experiences of three immigrants who were called into military service in the Civil War.) And we read of the efforts by a new generation of people of Kashubian ancestry in the emigration to re-establish ties with the old homeland in Poland. As a result, this attempt to bring together descriptions of both Polish and emigration topics represents a unique contribution to the literature on this subject and serves as a source to better understand the larger story of the Polish emigration as well.On a personal note, reviewer Angela Pienkos recalls her family history as a paternal granddaughter of Kashubian immigrants who settled in Chicago in the late 1870s, although other relatives went to Winona. The family name was even Germanized to Mischke although it was actually Myszka. When she visited her grandparents’ home village of Ugoszcz, about 40 miles from Gdańsk, she viewed the graves of her ancestors in the parish cemetery. In the records of the parish were the names of the many family members who were baptized and married there. Those records were in German.Overall, this publication is well worth reading. It suggests new areas for research like the Kaszubian communities in Chicago and Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and is acknowledged as a valuable addition to scholarship on a fascinating subject.

Socio-Economic Aspects of Centralized Wastewater System for Rural Settlement under Conditions of Eastern Poland

This paper presents a case study concerning multivariate analysis, including social and financial aspects, as well as environmental impacts, of the organized sanitation development under conditions of the selected rural settlement in Poland. Three technologically up-to-date variants of sanitary sewerage network concepts with the different assumed sewage transport, i.e., pressure, pressure-gravity and gravity, were proposed together with the investment and operation and maintenance costs estimation. The willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WTP) survey was used to analyze the level of social acceptance and involvement. The financial analysis covered two economic and cost-efficiency dynamic indicators, benefits–costs ratio (BCR) and dynamic generation cost (DGC), commonly used to support the decision-making process. The environmental aspects were assessed by the possible anthropopressure caused by sewerage leakage and odor emissions. Results of the WTA and WTP survey presented a significant level of acceptance and involvement of the local population to sustain the improved sanitation. The determined values of DGC indicated low cost-efficiency of the gravity system, while obtained values of BCR for all variants and the actual regional sewage fees showed the low profitability of improved sanitation, i.e., BCR < 1.0. All studied sanitation systems were assessed positively due to their environmental impacts. The performed studies showed that, despite the declared willingness to accept the organized sanitation and to pay the sewage fees, the economical sustainability of the proposed designs is doubtful over the longer time duration due to the significant capital and operation costs affecting the sewerage payment value.

Spatial Dimension of Transport Exclusion Related to Statutory Trade Restriction—The Use of ITS Tools in Studies of Sustainable Urban Development

The problem of statutory restrictions of the freedom to conduct business activities is a subject addressed by many researchers. On the other hand, there is little research into the spatial aspect of this phenomenon and its impact on the quality of life of the inhabitants of urban centres in terms of their exclusion from one of the key motivations for travelling, namely shopping trips. The main purpose of the article is to determine the impact of the introduction of a statutory restriction on Sunday trading on sustainable urban development in terms of identifying areas excluded from free access to such services within a large urban settlement in Poland. Our studies on accessibility by car utilised data from ITS systems, the assumptions of the probabilistic Huff Model, and methods to determine market catchment areas. The data used in the study were based on the results of a questionnaire survey. The research procedure was conducted for eight scenarios that covered two periods (March 2019 and November 2020) on trading and non-trading Sundays. The conducted research shows that changes in the temporal accessibility of grocery shops in Łódź within the analysed periods are noticeable for trading and non-trading Sundays. In both cases, accessibility by private car is decidedly worse on non-trading Sundays. Transport exclusion from accessibility to grocery shops applies, in particular, to residents of peripheral areas of the city and is further compounded by the statutory Sunday retail restrictions implemented nationwide.

"The Beginnings of Polish Jewry: Reevaluating the Evidence for the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Centuries"

This article reexamines the evidence of Jewish presence in Poland from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in connection with problems of origins, periodization, and localization of Jewish settlement in Poland. It deals inter alia with questions regarding the balance be¬tween Jewish and Christian evidence, as well as with reports of Jewish presence from neighboring areas of Eastern Europe such as Kievan Rus’. The reevaluation of evidence on medieval Polish Jews helps to illuminate the origins of eastern Ashkenazi Jewry, as well as to clarify diverse aspects of the history of early Eastern Europe. Thus, for example, among the most important general conclusions is the lack of continuity across three waves of Jewish migration and settlement in Poland. Since most Polish Jews were descendants of the third wave of Jewish migration into Poland, there is little doubt that the vast majority of them came from Germany and Bohemia, mostly via Silesia. We can also reliably con¬jecture that the Jewish population of southwestern Rus’—whatever its origins (possibly also at least partially Ashkenazi) and size (possibly reduced by the Mongol conquest)—came to be integrated with immigrants from the west due to the eastward expansion of Lithuania and Poland during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, most modern Ashkenazi Jewry must go back to the melding of these two communities.

The Problem of Mismatch between the CORINE Land Cover Data Classification and the Development of Settlement in Poland

The main goal of the article is the evaluation of usefulness of CORINE Land Cover (CLC) data—acquired predominantly by visual interpretation of Landsat satellite imagery—for monitoring of changes in settlement development and land use. This has been done by comparison of occurrence of buildings (and address points) in Poland with delimitations of land use belonging to particular classes in the CLC 2018 dataset. Large discrepancies have been identified, which reach on average approx. 34% of addresses and 35% of buildings located outside class 1 (artificial surfaces), mainly on terrains of class 2 (agricultural areas). Among single-family buildings it was 37% and among new addresses (forecasted or “under construction” buildings)—as much as 50%. This puts a question mark over the possibility of using CLC data with a resolution of 25 ha for monitoring of spatial planning and development in Poland for purposes of the diagnosis and assessment of the scale of dispersion of built-up areas. It is worth carrying out similar analyses in other countries, known for the deconcentration processes and a relatively large share of dispersed settlement, e.g., other CEE countries, Spain, Portugal, Italy.

NEW FIND OF OLBIAN COINS. TARASHCHA DISTRICT, KYIV REGION, UKRAINE

The aim of the study is presentation of a new hoard of ancient coins discovered in the Ukraine. In the Summer of 2019 fifteen bronze coins of Olbia (Greek polis in the North West Black Sea region) were found in the Kyiv region. Research methodology – principles of science, historicism, objectivity, methods of analysis, classification, generalization, historical-genetic and historical-typological. Scientific novelty. All coins are of “Borysthenes” type (head of river god Borysthenes / Scythian axe, bow in case, ΟΛΒΙΟ). An assemblage has been described by the founder as found in the ground between village Lukyanivka and the town Tarashcha (Kyiv region), near the highway P 04. The coins are dated to the end of fourth and the middle of the third century BC. The assemblage is one of interesting finds of Olbian coins on the way from the North Pontic Region to the West. The hoard from Lukyanivka is one of finds registered very far outside of Greek states of the northern coast of Black Sea. The cognitive value of the hoard lies above all in the region of its finding. The find from Lukyanivka is an important find as in recent years Olbian bronze coins as well as Bosporan coins were found on Celtic settlements in Poland (Upper Silesia; other coin finds were registered in Central Poland) and Czech Republic (Celtic oppidum at Nĕmcice, Moravia; a very rich assemblage of Greek and Roman coins). The find from Lukyanivka is a new important element in the discussion on inflow of Olbian coins to the West. The Lukyanivka hoard consists of 15 bronze coins with the head of river god Borysthenes, one of the most popular coins of Olbia. According to data obtained from the founder, the coins were found together in ‘one place’ but at ‘different depth’. In the founder’s opinion the value of the information on the find can’t be negated. Following to the chronology of “Borysthenes” coins proposed by P. O. Karyshkovskii coins found not far from Lukyanivka should be dated from the late fourth century BC to the ca. 250 BC. The most coins are dated to 290 – 250 BC. The structure of the Lukyanivka hoard should be treated as ‘typical’ for hoards of Olbian coins. The Conclusions. The find from Lukyanivka confirms that in the third century BC the most popular Olbian pieces of “Borysthenes” type penetrated the area of the Central Ukraine, precisely Middle Ros river region, in significant quantity. The “assemblage” is important find as the majority of Olbian and Bosporan coins in Central Europe – find from Germany is doubt all are single finds. The coins described in the article fills “a gap” between finds from Dnieper and Dniester rivers and Central European finds. The find is located inside the “tongue-shaped” area of finds from the North Pntic region). The “tongue-shaped” area dominated’ by single finds. The area of Olbian and Bosporan coin-finds indicates that the appearance of coins minted by Pontic Greek poleis in Central Europe may be connected with activity of people of Scythian culture. This is extremely important as we have in mind a unique find of Greek amphora from the Scythian settlement located in the south-eastern Poland.

Wsie zanikające – identyfikacja i analiza wybranych cech społeczno-ekonomicznych = Disappearing villages – identification and analysis of selected socioeconomic features

Contemporary rural settlement in Poland is first and foremost modified by demographic processes, of which decisive ones are a migratory influx of new inhabitants into rural areas in the immediate vicinity of large cities, as well as population outflow from most rural areas that are located traditionally and above all peripherally. These two directions to migration generate mostly opposing trends where the development of rural areas is concerned. Inflows of new inhabitants into suburbs and satellite villages close to cities ensure social, economic and infrastructural development or ”progress”, and sometimes even – paradoxically – a change of status from rural to urban. On the other hand, migratory outflows from most other rural areas give rise to a process of demographic degradation whose extreme manifestation may be the actual disappearance of a rural settlement. The fundamental unit of measurement and study here was the so-called ”statistical locality”, defined by GUS as the group of places taking on the name of the leading locality and usually comprising a village plus smaller settlements adjacent to it. The research encompassed a total of 41,466 such localities existing uninterruptedly between 1950 and 2011. The analysis further encompassed six time intervals, of which each ended in a year during which a Census was carried out (i.e. 1950, 1960, 1970, 1978, 1988, 2002 and 2011). For each inter-Censal period, attention was paid to the magnitude and direction of demographic change taking place in all of the rural localities. In this work, the key focus is on the “uniformly regressing villages”, which is to say those losing more than 5% of their inhabitants in the 1950‒2011 period, but also experiencing population declines in every one of the six inter-Censal periods. This is taken to be adequate justification for use of the more-loaded term “disappearing”. Through analysis of the statistical localities in rural areas it was found that some 25,711 of all villages reported a decline in the number of inhabitants over the 1950‒2011 period. However, the steady loss of people indicated by population declines over each of the six studied time intervals was an issue for 2956 of the villages mainly located in central and eastern parts of Poland. These are areas long regarded as only poorly-developed economically, including parts of the east that are clearly categorisable as “peripheral”. To be noted among the factors behind disappearances of villages are limited attractiveness arising out of low standards of living, natural conditions unsuited to farming, limited incomes earned from agricultural activity and poor outfitting in social and technical infrastructure. Throughout the post-War period it is small villages of fewer than 100 people that have experienced the most marked demographic regress. The smallest settlements of all – with 50 people or less – have experienced the most major loss of population, at around 28% on average. The analyses reported here thus support the notion that the scale and village, the less-serious the unfavourable population processes. However, the disappearing villages are home to a number of overlapping problems with development. Inhabitants either lack opportunities to meet their daily needs, or at best have limited chances to do so. And this starts with physiological needs, though also of course ranges through the social, emotional and economic, and ends with lack of access to public goods and services. The decline of rural areas thus features a so-called triggering factor, with this then unleashing a sequence of positive-feedback processes. A most typical trigger would be lack of job opportunities, and this exerts a selective effect in relation to who leaves the countryside. A next consequence of that is a decline in the purchasing power of rural households, a further worsening of living conditions, and inefficient use of infrastructure.

Sentimentality versus Transformation of the Historical Traditional Rural Landscape (A Case Study: The Landscape of Dutch Law Settlement in Poland)

AbstractThe study concentrated on social attitudes towards landscape heritage and the how the place of living was perceived in the context of the transformation of the rural landscape that is currently taking place. The following question was formulated: Are individuals’ approaches to landscape and their attachment to their place of living essential in terms of landscaping and future landscape changes? The research revealed that individual perceptions of rurality and the historical traditional rural landscape (HTRL) varied in different groups of interviewees. Nevertheless, observing the loss of the landscape’s beauty was a traumatic experience, and destructive changes to the landscape were difficult to accept for most of individuals who had spent their lives in the countryside and who felt a strong sense of patrimony. Conversely, the HTRL presented a less important value to other respondents, thus the destruction they observed of the local heritage induced less painful feelings in them. Overall, the results suggest that it is one’s personal interest that will ultimately decide about his/her preservation of the HTRL in the nearest future.

Recipe for a City

Transformations of historic spaces in European cities have always been subject to certain principles and rules – different in different eras – regulating their structures. The results of expanding and transforming urban settlements in Poland show that, particularly in the last dozen or so years, a clearly discernible principle would be difficult to find in the image of Polish cities. Absence of a universally accepted urban planning doctrine is probably one of the reasons that there is no harmony, beauty or composition in currently created large cities in Poland. The problems have been discussed on the example of one of the major and most beautiful cities in Poland – Kraków. Its spatial structure is the result of many centuries’ work, and it encompasses both historic urban schemes preserved in full and fragments of urban and rural settlements starting from the early Middle Ages. A rapid growth of the city area has been going on in several stages since the mid-20th century. Dynamic expansion, affected by several stylistic trends valid in the late 20th and early 21st century, such as socialist realism, modernism and postmodernism, has totally changed the spatial form of the city. The city population has trebled during that time, and its area has grown almost seven times. The efforts aimed at rebuilding, expansion, modernisation and ordering the city that were undertaken after the political regime change in 1989 and following the changes in the Act on Spatial Development introduced in 1994 and 2003 and in the building code – in 1994, have failed to meet the city residents’ expectations. Poland’s accession into the European Union in 2004 brought on a certain acceleration in the process of modernisation, rebuilding and transformation of the city. It has been – and still is – provoking a succession of environmental, social and, first of all, spatial conflicts. The most serious problem is the air pollution in the city, resulting both from dust and chemical emissions, the limits of which are exceeded for seven months a year. Additional inconveniences of the urban life in Kraków are related to the fact that there are approximately 300,000 commuters coming to the city on a daily basis, who use up a considerable portion of the scarce municipal services. The contemporary growth of development in Kraków and its surroundings – at the time when sustainable growth and spatial order make a universally accepted paradigm – must be considered an unfulfilled promise. It seems that basing city growth in Poland on the self-regulating free market forces has been a mistake. The introduced legal and planning regulations were excessively liberal. This, combined with the fact that only a small percentage of urban areas have valid land use plans, makes the system defective and insufficient. Moreover, the frequently introduced changes and modifications of the system only further expose its inefficiency. The dominant position of investors, rather than urban planners, in creation of urban spaces, both in housing and services, does not promote harmonious growth or high quality public spaces.

Social containers as a tool of social and spatial segregation

Our paper deals with the establishment of the container settlements in Poland and the grassroots response to it: by the inhabitants and by political activists. In particular we are interested in how local authorities strategically frame housing issues to create social acceptance of diminishing standards of social housing in Poland and the involvement of the mainstream media in the process. We are focusing on strategies as well as tactical efforts to overcome structural and discursive opportunities emerging in the process of the anti- container campaign. Exclusionary discourse about the ‘container ghettos’ becomes a justification for local authorities to use social containers as tool of social and spatial segregation as well as to discipline communal tenants. In response of this process activists had to develop new diagnostic mobilizing frames and put considerable effort into frame alignment processes and forged new alliances with other actors. We analyze the campaign from the perspective of social movement studies, in particular structural theories of collective action. One side effect of such policies is unspoken racism, which we - after E. Balibar - interpret mostly in class terms aimed at the economically maladjusted. Empirically, our paper draws upon sociological intervention and 40 in-depth interviews with the inhabitants of the container settlements in Poland in 7 different cities conducted in 2008-2012; participantobservations of the settlements and of the campaign against them due to personal involvement of one of the authors.

The early medieval village of Morawy: a grave field from the 11th century

This article deals with the issues of an 11th century grave field in Morawy village in Kuyavia. In the first Piast times, the area was an integral part of the dynasty’s dominion. Discovered in the 1930s, the grave field is of great importance from the point of view of considerations of ethnically foreign settlements in Poland.

Over 4,500 years of trepanation in Poland: From the unknown to therapeutic advisability

AbstractThis paper discusses 6 trepanned skulls from central Poland, dating from the late Neolithic (3,000–2,800 BC) to early modern times (18th century AD). Four of them come from a small area in and around the town of Brześć Kujawski in Kujawy, a region of long‐lasting and intense human settlement in Poland. The analysed skulls provide striking evidence for the long history of trepanation in this part of Europe. Three surgical techniques were used: sawing, scraping, and drilling, either on their own or in combination with one another. Regardless of the method, all the trepanations were fully healed, which proves long‐term survival of the patients. All skulls belonged to adult males, who were generally at a higher risk of trauma in the populations from which 4 of the specimens derive. The studied skulls demonstrate a marked evolution in trepanation practices over time. Trepanations from the late medieval and early modern times tend to be smaller, less life threatening, and clearly made for therapeutic purposes to remedy cranial injuries. The remarkable skills of the surgeons who performed them could be linked to the influence of the renowned Danzig Anatomical School in Gdańsk, which was one of the leading centres of medical and anatomical research in northern and central Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The stonemasonry centre in Dębnik under the management of the discalced Carmelites in Czerna

One of the most famous centers of stonemasons’ settlement in Poland is located in a small village Dębnik near Krakow, which from 1628 years belonged to the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Czerna. Carmelites dealt with the administration, leasing stone mines, obtaining stonmasons and acquiring customers. The text examines the history of the stonemasons’ settlement under the management of the Discalced Carmelites from the beginning of the seventeenth century until 1953, the administration of craft workshops, management and relations between religious and stonemasons in different historical periods.

Spatial and dynamic aspects of the rank-size rule method. Case of an urban settlement in Poland

Outline of contents: Many researchers who study urban settlement networks choose different statistical methods, among them G. K. Zipf's size-rank method. This paper presents proposed methods of geo-visualisation for studying changes in the rank of cities in an urban settlement network. The discussion uses the example of Polish urban settlements, using data for Polish cities from six population censuses (1950, 1960, 1970, 1978, 1988, and 2002). Analytical, statistical and spatial methods were used. The chart (rank clocks) proposed by M. Batty (2006), which shows the dynamics in changes in ranks 1 to 20. The values of the contrast exponent in the Zipf rule were used to interpret for the Polish urban settlement network between 1950 and 2002. Havlin's graph (1995) shows that the largest changes in the ranks of the urban settlement network in Poland occurred in the first post-war decade. In geographical sciences, the spatial analysis of a phenomenon or a process using a map is especially important. For this reason, it was decided that mapping methods be used to present the rank of cities and changes to city rank in Poland between decades as a thematic map. The value by which cities moved in the ranking can be represented as a diagram map in accordance with cartographic rules. The standard deviation method should be used to appropriately present the issue. Recognizing, that the difference in ranks less than |σ| (standard deviation) are typical and to some extent inevitable over half a century, we should look that deviations below | 3σ|, into other deviations from the standard deviation. Of particular interest are deviations above which are called pathological in statistics and cause asymmetries in the distribution. Each method revealed different aspects of the transformation of the settlement network. The answers to research questions can be found in the post-war history of Poland, its political circumstances (changes to its state borders in the east and west, socialist industrialisation, urbanisation and, in the last decade, suburbanisation).

Osteological remains from the feudal castle Przewłoka (13–14th centuries AD, Poland)

Representative skeletal collections, consisting of remains of mammals, birds and fishes (total 1704 bones) were obtained during the excavations of the medieval castle Przewłoka 1 in 2015. Analysis of these remains and its comparison with collections from other sites have established some common feudal settlements in Poland and the special features of economic activity and the hunting of castle owners in 13–14th centuries. The pig predominates among domestic animals, wild boar and bison — among hunting animals, aurochs are sporadically presented. The proportion of wild birds in relation to domestic ones is not as high as the proportion of remains of hunted to domestic mammals. Cluster analysis of the fish fauna of some medieval settlements in Poland showed that the fauna of the Przewłoka castle is part of a group of localities combining fortified cities, monasteries and possessory feudal castles. The diversity of mammals, fish and birds reflects the high social status of the castle owners, and allows reconstructing a medieval landscape of the north-eastern Wielkopolska as well as water bodies near the Przewłoka castle.

Polish Spas in the Process of Transformation

Economic transition initiated in the former Communist countries in Europe in the 1990s has had a strong impact on all spheres of life including tourism. Depreciated stateowned spas were subject to transformation resulting inter alia in ownership change. The article highlights and evaluates the relationship between progress in privatisation and ability to acquire EU funds by the example of 16 spas located in similar-sized settlements in Poland. It shows that a regulated legal status, thus providing companies with stability, has created optimal conditions for EU fundraising.

Economic Analyses In Sewage System Designing For Rural Settlement – Case Study

Abstract The paper presents application of multivariate economic analysis to decision making process of selection of the most economically suitable concept of sanitary sewage system for a selected rural settlement in Poland. Analysis covered Drelow, Lublin Voivodeship, settlement area with 121 households with 421 residents and several municipal services. Three variants of sewage removal and treatment were developed: unconventional gravity-pressure network, gravity-pressure network combined with local domestic wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and full pressure sewerage network. In all variants, the container wastewater treatment plant of daily capacity 450 m3 day-1 was applied. Estimations of investment and exploitation costs for 30 years period operation were performed. Economic multivariate analysis was based on: Payback Period, Dynamic Generation Cost (DGC), Net Present Value (NPV) and Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR). The obtained indicators were the input data for the weighted sum model allowing to select the most appropriate variant. Analysis showed that the most suitable was variant No 1. However, it was also noticed that all of the tested designs were ineffective economically.