Migration and Population Structure Among Two Late Medieval Polish Populations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Poland" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This bioarchaeological study employs biological distance analyses using dental metrics and morphology of 840 individuals from 25 sites to evaluate changes in population structures in Poland during the High to Late Middle Ages (eleventh to sixteenth centuries AD). Samples represent medieval Polish, German, Czech, Hungarian, Lithuanian, and Kievan Rus populations. Results support a change in population structure in Poland influenced by migrants primarily from the neighboring Czech Kingdom, and to a lesser extent from the Kingdoms of Germany and Hungary. These changes are especially true for the larger town of Dzwonowo, which is mostly similar to the samples representing the Czech center of Prague. These results confirm historical records for the movement of people from the Czech Kingdom to Poland during the establishment of the town of Dzwonowo, and bring perspective to the unknown population history of the village of Gać. Results also contest historical claims that interactions between Czech and Polish populations were strictly hostile, and that moderate to large-scale migration processes likely occurred between the two regions. Results of intersite variance analysis reflect higher genetic (phenotypic) variance among samples derived from larger sites, highlighting the relationship between urbanization and migration in Central Europe during the Middle Ages.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Life and Death in Medieval Poland   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36611.0