Bodzia Cemetery is a large 10th- to 11th-century chamber burial site in Bodzia, a town in the Kuyavia region of Central Poland, approximately 15 km to the northwest of Włocławek. A group from the Polish Academy of Sciences, led by Polish archaeologist, Andrzej Buko, excavated this site between 2007 – 2009. The excavation uncovered a large elite necropolis containing more than 58 graves, cenotaphs, weapons and riches. The Bodzia Cemetery is considered to be one of the most significant and "spectacular"Andrzej Buko and Irena Sobkowiak-Tabaka, "Bodzia: A New Viking-Age Cemetery with Chamber Graves," Antiquity Project Gallery 85, no. 330 (2011): available at, http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/buko330/ early medieval findings in Poland in the last century. Artefacts uncovered in the site were mostly of foreign origin, which is atypical of other sites in the area. Information gleaned from the Bodzia Cemetery provided archaeologists with evidence of burial practices during the early medieval period in Poland.
Chamber burial sites were common in the area, being a primary practice within Old Rus, Scandinavian and Slavic countries in the Viking-Age.Nadezhda I. Platonova, "Elite Culture of Old Rus’: New Publications and Discussions (A Review of IHMC RAS Studies in 2015 – 2016)," Archaeologia Baltica 24 (2017): 126. The study of Bodzia Cemetery is important, as it helps illustrate the socio-cultural and ethnic aspects of settled peoples in Poland, as reflected in the necropolis. The burial site indicates two separate periods of use. The first is from 980 to 1035 AD, and the second from the late 11th and early 12th centuries. There has been little evidence of an early settlement discovered, though, finds from a later settlement have been tentatively attributed to the second phase of the cemetery.Michał Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, Organisation of the Burial Space, the Burial Rites in the Light of the Cultural and Historical Determinants," in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 346. The ethnicity of those buried at the site is inconclusive, as isotopic analysis of the remains indicate that they were from an unknown foreign origin. The site demonstrates burial rituals and artefacts of Kievan Rus, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian and Khazar origin. The nature of multiculturality at the site, and proximity to the Vistula River trade route, indicates that it was perhaps a foreign trade settlement connecting the Baltic to the Byzantine Empire.Buko and Sobkowiak-Tabaka, "Bodzia: A New Viking-Age Cemetery with Chamber Graves."
History
The site of the Bodzia Cemetery is situated on a gradually eastward sloping flat morainic plateau that was formed during the Vistulan glaciation.Iwona Hildebrandt-Radke, "The Effect of Depositional and Post-Depositional Processes on the Preservation of Skeletal Remains in the Bodzia Cemetery," in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 54; 56. Pottery fragments excavated at the burial site indicate that the area was historically inhabited by both Neolithic and Lusatian cultures.Andrzej Buko, “Overview of the Finds from the Bodzia Cemetery,” in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 164. Use of the cemetery itself dates back to the 10th century, and remained an active burial ground until the early 13th century.Andrzej Buko et al., "Unique Medieval Cemetery from the 10th/11th Century with Chamber-Like Graves from Bodzia (Central Poland): Preliminary Result of the Multidisciplinary Research," Archaologisches Korrespondenzblatt 43, no. 3 (2013):432. The chamber burials indicate that the site was used in two periods during this time. One period was in the late 10th century – early 11th century, and the other in the late 11th – early 13th centuries.Andrzej Buko, “The Bodzia Cemetery in Light of the Interdisciplinary Research,” in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 539. Chronological dating of the site was achieved by categorising uncovered coins, and radiocarbon dating wood and leather.Buko et al., "Unique Medieval Cemetery from the 10th/11th Century," 433. Although above ground features may have been apparent during the Middle Ages, few indications of structures or grave markers have survived. This has been linked to the prevalence of agricultural use of the land from the 19th century onwards.Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, Organisation of the Burial Space," 343.
The site is located near Włocławek, on the Vistula River.Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, Organisation of the Burial Space," 347. This area had significant military importance as well as two common trade routes throughout the Piast period.Mateusz Bogucki, “The Archaeological Context of the Bodzia Cemetery and the Trade Route along the Middle and the Lower Vistula during the Middle and Late Viking Period,” in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 31. During late 10th – early 11th centuries, under Bolesław the Brave’s reign, there was an influx of Scandinavian and Kievan mercenaries in Poland.Roman Michalowski, “The Historical Context of the Discoveries at Bodzia,” in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 38-9. Many of these people were migrants, merchants or foreign military officials allied to Poland during the Piast dynasty.Michałowski, “The Historical Context of the Discoveries at Bodzia,” 41; Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, Organisation of the Burial Space,” 409-10. The nature of excavated material at Bodzia indicates that the site is evidence of one such settlement, which was likely situated to the west of the Cemetery.Michalowski, “The Historical Context of the Discoveries at Bodzia,” 43; Irena Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 51.
Excavation
Bodzia Cemetery was discovered in 2000, during a field survey to establish the route of the A1 motorway.Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” 47. The excavation of the site began in 2004, and concluded in 2007, financed by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways. Over this time, 2069 important features were discovered over an area of three hectares.Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” 48. The Bodzia Cemetery is located at the southern end of the excavated site. As only the northern part of the Cemetery was initially uncovered, the size of the excavation was extended to include the whole necropolis.Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” 51. This subsequent excavation occurred in 2009, and was funded by both the National Institute of Heritage and the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The first stage of excavation began with the removal of humic topsoil by mechanical means.Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” 52; Hildebrandt-Radke, "The Effect of Depositional and Post-Depositional Processes," 58. This method uncovered visible evidence of chamber burials, created by differences in soil composition.Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” 52. These burial chambers were subsequently excavated in three ways; the removal of soil in the entirety of a burial pit in the case of shallow graves; the removal of soil in half-sections, for graves inhabited by a single occupant; and the checkerboard pattern method of excavation for graves with multiple occupants. The site was subject to many specialist studies, including anthropological, archaeobotanical, petrographic and geomorphological analyses to garner a complete archaeological picture of the burial ground.Sobkowiak-Tabaka, “Bodzia: Site Location and History of Research,” 53.
Burials
The excavation uncovered 52 human skeletons spread across 58 chamber graves.Alicja Drosz-Lipinska and Tomasz Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 143. Some graves had no evidence of skeletal remains, either due to poor preservation, or because the chambers were used as cenotaphs.Drosz-Lipinska and Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” 143; Michał Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, Organisation of the Burial Space, the Burial Rites in the Light of the Cultural and Historical Determinants," in Bodzia: A Late Viking-Age Elite Cemetery in Central Poland, ed. Andrzej Buko (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 343. The nature of soil composition in some parts of the cemetery resulted in the leaching of calcium carbonates, which caused the human remains to become soft.Hildebrandt-Radke, "The Effect of Depositional and Post-Depositional Processes," 60. Skeletal remains were better preserved in areas where the soil was less permeable. All uncovered remains did show a high degree of deterioration, especially those of young people, and those buried in shallow graves.Hildebrandt-Radke, "The Effect of Depositional and Post-Depositional Processes," 62; Drosz-Lipinska and Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” 143.
Anthropological research at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń determined that 14 of the recovered remains were male, and 21 were female. Bone deterioration of 17 remains was too severe for sex to be determined.Drosz-Lipinska and Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” 143; Buko and Sobkowiak-Tabaka, "Bodzia: A New Viking-Age Cemetery with Chamber Graves." Further research determined that 74% of the population in the necropolis were adults.Drosz-Lipinska and Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” 143. The underrepresentation of children is atypical of burial grounds from the Middle Ages. Women exhumed from the cemetery were, on average, aged between 20 – 30 years, whereas the men were between the ages of 40 – 50.Drosz-Lipinska and Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” 145-7. Lipinska and Kozlowski believed that the discrepancy between the ages of men and women was due to complications in female pregnancy, which reduced average life-span.Drosz-Lipinska and Kozlowski, “Analysis of the Skeletal Population from the Cemetery,” 147.
There are two distinct periods of burial indicated at the cemetery, separated by approximately 50 years.Buko, "The Bodzia Cemetery in Light of the Interdisciplinary Research," 539; Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, 348. These have been determined by the differences in chronology and burial rites observed within the burial pits.Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, 347. The earlier period demonstrated burial rites that were atypical of other sites in Poland.Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, 350. The cemetery was organised and showed customs that are indicative of the burial of those of high social status.Buko, "The Bodzia Cemetery in Light of the Interdisciplinary Research," 452; Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, 351. The graves were positioned in a north–south facing square shape, which is typical of Scandinavian burials.Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, 351-2. The imprint of a wooden post dug into the ground was discovered in one of the graves, a practice common amongst the Slavs and Scandinavian Rus.Kara, "Description of the Cemetery, 353.