Unia Lubelska (Union of Lublin) by Jan Matejko (1869)
Unia Lubelska ("Union of Lublin")
by Jan Matejko, 1869.
History of Poland
 
Chronology
Until 966
966–1385
1385–1569
1569–1795
1795–1918
1918–1939
1939–1945
1945–1989
1989–present
Topics
Culture Economics
v • d • e
Prehistoric earthenware from the area of modern-day Poland
Prehistory of Poland
(to 966)
 
Chronology
Stone Age
Bronze and Iron Age
Antiquity
Early Middle Ages
Topics
Lusatian culture
Biskupin
Oksywie culture
Wielbark culture
Przeworsk culture
Polish tribes
v • d • e

The prehistory of Poland, or the history of Poland until 966 AD, covers the period from the appearance of humans on the lands of today's Poland to the establishment of the Polish state. It spans at least half a million years. There is only a very limited amount of information accessible, because scientific investigations rely on the methods of archeology throughout the period, and on the few written ancient and medieval sources, once they become available. Subject to climatic discontinuities, the area of present-day Poland went through the stages of human development known as the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages. As the Antiquity and Middle Ages civilizations were unfolding in southern and western Europe, the discussed area became influenced to varying degrees, either through intermediate cultures or directly, by those higly developed centers. The use of written language in Poland came only after 966 AD, when the ruler of the Polish lands converted to Christianity, and educated foreign clerics arrived.[1]

Contents

[edit] Stone Age

Main article: Stone Age Poland

The Stone Age era in Poland lasted five hundred thousand years and involved three different human species: Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. The Stone Age cultures ranged from early human groups with primitive tools to advanced agricultural societies using sophisticated stone tools, building fortified settlements and developing copper metallurgy. As elsewhere in central Europe, the Stone Age human cultures went through the stages known as the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, each bringing new refinements of the stone tool making techniques. The Paleolithic human activities (the earliest sites 500,000 years old) were intermittent because of the recurring periods of glaciation. A general climate warming and the resulting increase in the ecologic environment diversity was characteristic of the Mesolithic (from 9000 BC). The Neolithic brings the first settled agricultural communities; their founders migrated from the Danube River area (from 5500 BC). Later the native post-Mesolithic populations also adopted and further developed the agricultural way of life (from 4400 to about 2000 BC).[2]

[edit] Bronze and Iron Age

Main article: Bronze and Iron Age Poland

The Bronze and Iron Age cultures in Poland are known mainly from archeological research. Early Bronze Age cultures in Poland begin around 2300-2400 BC.[3] The Iron Age commences ca. 700-750 BC.[4] The Iron Age archeological cultures described in the main article no longer existed by the start of the Common Era. The subject of the ethnicity and linguistic affiliation of the groups living in central and eastern Europe at that time is, given the absence of written records, speculative, and accordingly there is considerable disagreement. In Poland the Lusatian culture, spanning both the Bronze and Iron ages, became particularly prominent. The most famous archeological finding from that period is the Biskupin fortified settlement (gord), representing the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age.[5]

[edit] Antiquity

Main article: Poland in Antiquity

Peoples belonging to numerous archeological cultures identified with Celtic, Germanic and Baltic tribes lived in various parts of Poland from about 400 BC. Other groups, difficult to identify, were most likely also present, as ethnic composition of archeological cultures is often poorly recognized. Short of using a written language to any appreciable degree, many of them developed relatively advanced material culture and social organization, as evidenced by the archeological record, for example judged by the presence of richly furnished, dynastic "princely" graves. Characteristic of the period was high geographical mobility of large groups of people, even equivalents of today's nations.[6] Celtic peoples established a number of settlement centers mostly in southern Poland, which was at the outer edge of their expansion. They exerted cultural influence disproportional to their small numbers there. Germanic peoples lived in today's Poland for several centuries, while many of their tribes also migrated out in the southern and eastern directions (see Wielbark culture). With the expansion of the Roman Empire came the first written remarks by Roman authors that are relevant to the developments on Polish lands. They provide additional insight when compared with the archeological record. In the end, as the Roman Empire was nearing its collapse and the nomadic peoples invading from the east destroyed, damaged or destabilized the various Germanic cultures and societies, the Germanic people left eastern and central Europe for the safer and wealthier southern and western parts of the continent.[7] The northeast corner of modern Poland's territory was and remained populated by Baltic tribes.[8]

[edit] Early Middle Ages

Main article: Poland in the Early Middle Ages

Many researchers now believe that the Slavic tribes were not indigenous to the lands that were to become Poland,[a] although the opposite point of view, predominant in Polish prehistory in the past, is still represented. The first waves of Slavic migrations settled the area of the upper Vistula River and elsewhere in southeastern Poland and southern Masovia, coming from the upper and middle regions of the Dnieper River. The West Slavs would have come primarily from the more western early Slavic branch called the Sclaveni by Jordanes in Getica, the eastern branch being the Antes.[9] The Slavs had migrated into Poland beginning in the second half of the 5th century, some half century after these territories were vacated by Germanic tribes.[10][11] This discontinuity (a period during which human settlements on most Polish lands were absent or rare) makes the moment of appearance of the Slavs in Poland at the outset of the Middle Ages distinct and clear.[12][13]

Slavic peoples around the 8th and 9th centuries, as seen in 1917

From there the new population dispersed north and west over the course of the 6th century. They lived from cultivation of crops and were generally farmers, but also engaged in hunting and gathering. Their migration was probably caused by the pursuit of fertile soils and persistent attacks on eastern and central Europe by waves of people and armies from the east, such as the Huns, Avars and Magyars.[12][13]

A number of such Polish tribes formed small states beginning in the 8th century, some of which coalesced later into larger ones. Among those were the Vistulans (Wiślanie) in southern Poland with Kraków and Wiślica as their main centers (major building of fortified centers and other developments in their country took place in the 9th century), but later the tribe or tribes referred to as the Polans (Polanie, lit. "people of the fields") turned out to be of momentous historic importance. The tribal states built many gords – fortified structures with earth and wood walls and embankments – from the 7th century onwards. Some of them were developed and inhabited, others had a very large empty area and may have served primarily as refuges in times of trouble. The Polans settled in the flatlands around Giecz, Poznań and Gniezno that eventually became the foundation and early center of Poland, lending their name to the country. They went through a period of accelerated building of gord type fortified settlements and territorial expansion beginning in the first half of the 10th century, and the Polish state developed from their tribal entity in the second half of the 10th century.[13][14]

[edit] Notes

a.^ This is the so-called allochthonic theory; according to the autochthonic theory the opposite is true

[edit] References

Inline

  1. ^ Archeologia Żywa (Living Archeology), special English issue 2005; a publication commissioned by the Centre for the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage in Warsaw
  2. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 8-53
  3. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 55, Sławomir Kadrow
  4. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 68, Bogusław Gediga
  5. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 54-85
  6. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 86-121
  7. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 94-115
  8. ^ U źródeł Polski, p. 116-119
  9. ^ "Though their names are now dispersed amid various clans and places, yet they are chiefly called Sclaveni and Antes"; transl. by Charles Christopher Mierow, Princeton University Press 1908, from the University of Calgary web site
  10. ^ Kaczanowski, Kozłowski, p. 337
  11. ^ Kaczanowski, Kozłowski, p. 327-330 and specifically 346
  12. ^ a b Kaczanowski, Kozłowski, p. 325-352
  13. ^ a b c U źródeł Polski, p. 122-167
  14. ^ Wyrozumski, p. 47-86

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