5487408291

SPRAWOZDANIA ARCHEOLOGICZNE 60,2008

PL ISSN 0081-3834

Piotr Włodarczak (Kraków)

ABSOLUTE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BARROW IN KOLOSY

The Poznań Radiocarbon Laboratory headed by Dr Tomasz Goslar, professor of the Adam Mickiewicz University, has madę 22 radiocarbon dating measurements as part of the Ho H 016 27 project Absolute chronology ofthe Corded Ware culture in south-eastern Poland and in Ukrainę, financed by the State Committee for Scientific Research (Jarosz, Włodarczak 2007). Humań bones from Barrow I in Kolosy, district of Kazimierza Wielka (Kempisty 1978), as well as samples from other sites, were selected for the radiocarbon dating as “materials representing the Corded Ware culture” (CWC). However, the measurements placed the bones in the Funnel Beaker culture (FBC) instead. The new dating has provided a pretext for reconsidering the stratigraphical situation of the burial mound in Kolosy. The mound had been explored by Andrzej Kempisty in 1964, during his systematic research into barrows on the Lower Nida (e.g. Kempisty 1970; 1978), which was part of field work supervised by the Team for Studies of the Polish Middle Ages of the University of Warsaw and the Warsaw University of Technology. This was the first systematic explo-ration of barrows on the Małopolska Upland (Kolosy, Barrow 1; Miernów, Barrows I and II;

erniki Górne). So far, six burial mounds have been excavated in the Nida region (the four barrows mentioned above, Barrow 1 in Malżyce and the “Mogiła” in Zagaje Stradowskie). Stratigraphical data documented for each of these features were complicated and some-what unclear; the number and diversity of the uncovered graves indicated many phases of using the burial places. Despite the interpretative difficulties, materials from the mounds on the Lower Nida are the most important source for research into various aspects of the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Ages in western Małopolska. The four barrows examined by Andrzej Kempisty remain the only fully explored features in the region (i.e. features whose embankments were still clearly visible when the excavations started). Another such