Tool-kits and Burial Rites: The Case of the Janisławice Mesolithic Grave

Abstract

In the autumn of 1936, a prehistoric grave was discovered near the village of Janislawice, Skierniewice Voievodom, central Poland, by two local farmers whilst digging for gravel. The grave was located on the north bank of the Lupia River (a tributary of the Bzura River), 13m above the river valley and 159 m above OD. It was dug into gravelly-sandy fluvioglacial deposits of the penultimate glaciation, on the slope of a kame hill (fig. 1). Although the grave was partially damaged in the discovery, in April of the following year the site was investigated by K. Jazdzewski, from the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw. A stratigraphic sequence was recorded, and the skeleton and a variety of grave goods were excavated. The single skeleton had been placed in a sitting position, the legs outstretched and the back leaning against the wall of the grave pit. Red ochre powder was also probably present in small quantities in the fill. The skeleton was that of a man, aged about 30, having a ‘robust’ build and showing craniometrical similarities to modern Lapp populations (Steslicka-Mydlarska 1954).