Temporal and Spatial Liminality in Early Bronze Age Central Europe: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of a Mierzanowice Culture Cemetery

Summary

The cemetery at Szarbia in southeastern Poland is a Mierzanowice culture cemetery, from which 45 individuals have been excavated. The skeletal remains from this site had yet to be examined or published prior to this study. The Mierzanowice culture conforms to the “Borderlands” theme well in terms of its many modes of liminality. It is temporally liminal in that it is an Early Bronze Age culture, transitional between Late Neolithic and Bronze Age paradigms. It is culturally liminal in that modes of subsistence typically associated with the Late Neolithic and, later, the Bronze Age are both practiced by this culture at different points in time; furthermore, the increased social stratification typically associated with the Bronze Age does not seem to appear in the Mierzanowice culture to the same degree as its contemporaries. It is also spatially liminal, existing between and on the periphery of several dominant Bronze Age paradigms—e.g., Únětice to the west and Otomani-Füzesabony to the south. This bioarchaeological study examined the biological realities of Mierzanowice liminality; preliminary analyses find overall rates of disease and stress indicators to be consistent with Late Neolithic cultures in the region, but rates of trauma caused by interpersonal violence to be lower.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Bioarchaeology of Frontier and Borderlands

Keywords

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