Inside and Outside a Burial Mound: When, How and in What Environment Were the Kurgans Built by Late Neolithic Communities on the Subcarpathian Loess Plateau (SE Poland)?

The unique, well-pre served kur gan com plex near Cieszacin Wielki (SE Po land) is a spe cific type of ar chae o log i cal site with its own land scape form. This com plex of pre his toric earth burial mounds, lo cated on a wide, flat wa ter shed hill top with NW-SE ori en ta tion, be longs to a chain of sim i lar forms found in the loess fore land of the Carpathians. The kur gans were prob a bly built by Late Neo lithic com mu ni ties of the Corded Ware cul ture en gaged in pastoralism with ro ta tional graz ing. Taking into ac count the need to pre serve this valu able el e ment of the cul tural land scape and ar chae o log i cal her i tage in its orig inal form, instead of by excavation that would irretrievably destroy the site, non-invasive and minimally invasive investigations were car ried out at the Cieszacin Wielki site. The re sults of lithological, geo chem i cal, palaeopedological and palynological anal y ses as well as com bined geo phys i cal prospection were used to ex am ine the struc ture of the kur gans, and to re con struct their orig i nal ap pear ance and the nat u ral palaeoenvironment in their sur round ings. The time when the mounds were built was de ter mined based on ra dio car bon dat ing of or ganic ma te rial in the sam ples taken from bore holes made into them. The kur gans near Cieszacin Wielki are of dif fer ent sizes and oc cur close to each other. The cover of the mounds con sists of two lay ers. An in ner dark layer con tains hu mus ma te rial ev i dently in di cat ing ear lier hu man ac tiv ity due to a high con tent of phospho rus. Ra dio car bon dat ing shows that the ma te rial of this layer was formed about 4800-5300 cal BP, so it is a rem nant of the Fun nel Beaker cul tural layer. Pol len anal y sis in di cates that each mound was dec o rated with bloom ing birch twigs af ter the first stage of kur gan con struc tion. This prac tice could have been an ex pres sion of magic and rit ual cer e mo nies as well as be ing aimed at pro tect ing the mound from ero sion. Grooves around the cir cum fer ence of the mounds marked their orig i nal ex tent. Sub se quently, the whole mound was cov ered with pale loess ma te rial taken from a nearby pit. Geo phys i cal in ves ti gations in di cated the ex is tence of sev eral anom a lies, dif fer ing in size and shape, in side the mounds. These rep re sent burial cham bers lo cated at var i ous depths both un der and within each mound. Based on pol len anal y sis, we think that the kur gans were orig i nally lo cated not in open land scape but in a mid-for est clear ing, in an area pre vi ously used by the peo ple of the Fun nel Beaker cul ture, prob a bly for cat tle graz ing.