Author: mm.tomczyk

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EuroWeb. Europe through Textiles

Textiles accompany us throughout life, from swaddling clothes to funerary shrouds, flexible and accessible materials through which we express gender, age, and status. As a techno-complex, textile crafts predate metallurgy and even pottery. European history and identity is shaped by this materiality and technology, and its manifestations in terminology, iconography and symbolism have an impact on the history and archaeology of Europe.

It is by no means a coincidence that the industrial revolution was sparked by the textile industries, changing European landscapes and speeding up production of this extremely time-consuming craft. Consequently, textiles became universal media of communication, exchange, and identity creation across epochs, cultures, social classes, technologies, markets, and genders. They bring people, bodies, and objects together, more than any other media or material.

The topic of textiles is universal. It comprises theoretical as well as material studies and scientific analyses. But the current approaches for understanding and appreciating textiles in European history do not respond well to the rational, linear treatments applied to other technical problems in science.

There are a number of challenges in textile research and as many ways of resolving them – each approached differently by the various stakeholders involved. EuroWeb seeks to challenge national and mono-disciplinary approaches which have dominated our understanding of textiles. It not only envisages collaborations among the traditional disciplines of history, philology, art history, archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology but also builds bridges between crafts practitioners, museum curators, designers, and artisans.

EuroWeb therefore delivers interdisciplinary, intersectoral research and training for a new generation of ECIs as members of an imaginative and innovative network. Textiles are a fundamental component of European material culture, which gives EuroWeb remarkable potential for outreach and knowledge sharing with all parts of society and with all parts of Europe, including the ITC. The scientific goal is to co-create a new textile-based interpretation of European history centred on sustainability, training the next generation of scholars with the interdisciplinary skills needed to address new fields of knowledge.

EuroWeb explores the whole geographical area of Europe. The chronological frame stretches from prehistory and into Industrialisation and the globalised textile trade. Major technological textile innovations came with new loom types c. 6000 BCE, with the exploitation of wool c. 3000 BCE, the invention of the spinning wheel 1300 CE, and the mechanisation of textile processes in the 18th century CE during the industrial revolution, which profoundly changed Europe and had a global impact. Textiles are not just clothing and furnishings but are also sails and sacks – used for transportation, storage and other domestic necessities. EuroWeb aims to investigate the cultural and socio-economic impact of textile production on agriculture, animal husbandry and the environment, and its role in craft organisation and production, in trade and communication, and in the construction of gender and individual and collective identities.

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Stone Age Department

addres:
00-927 Warszawa, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, Szkoła Główna, pok. 2.15, 0.30 i 3.24, tel. +48 22 55 22 842

head of the Department:
prof. dr hab. Karol Szymczak

faculty:
dr hab. Claudio Berto, prof. ucz.
dr hab. Witold Gumiński
dr hab. Małgorzata Kot, prof. ucz. 
dr hab. Dariusz Manasterski, prof. ucz. 
Dr. Marcin Białowarczuk
Dr. Katarzyna Januszek
Dr. Michał Przeździecki
dr hab. Katarzyna Pyżewicz
Dr. Karolina Bugajska
Dr. Artur Grabarek
Natalia Gryczewska, MA

PhD candidates:
Aleksandra Cetwińska, MA
Grzegorz Czajka, MA
Michał Leloch, MA

Archaeological fieldworks in Uzbekistan

 

conducted research grants:

  1. The high-mountain rock art sites in Kyzyl Dara gorge in Uzbekistan
    Principal Investigator: prof. dr hab. Karol Szymczak
    Main investogator: mgr Michał Leloch
    project financed by NCN PRELUDIUM BIS 2; nr 2019/35/O/HS3/03051
  1. Chemical traces of human activity in caves of Polish Jura. Use of selected lipid biomarkers analysis and PAHs analysis in sediments from archaeological sites.
    Principal Investigator: mgr Natalia Gryczewska
    project financed by NCN PRELUDIUM; nr 2021/41/N/HS3/02369
  1. Absolute chronology of burials and loose human bones from the hunter-gatherer Stone Age sites Dudka and Szczepanki in Masuria (NE-Poland)
    Principal Investigator: Karolina Bugajska
    project financed by NCN Opus 20; No 2020/39/B/HS3/02375
  1. A palaeoecological approach to archaeological sites: The landscape of the human occupation between the late Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic in southern Poland
    Principal Investigator: dr hab. Claudio Berto
    project financed by NCN OPUS; nr 2020/39/B/HS3/00932
  1. Scar pattern analysis method. Testing the procedures.
    Principal Investigator: dr hab. Małgorzata Kot
    project financed by NCN SONATA; 2016/21/D/HS3/02665
  1. The Subneolithic of Central Mazovia in the Light of Archival Collections of the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw
    Principal Investigator: dr Michał Przeździecki
    project funded by the Minister of Culture, National Heritage, and Sport from the Culture Promotion Fund, obtained from levies imposed on games subject to state monopoly, in accordance with Article 80(1) of the Act of 19 November 2009 on gambling.”

 

finished projects:

  1. Multidisciplinary microregional studies of the Middle Palaeolithic in the south-western Chatkal Range (western Tian Shan piedmonts, Uzbekistan); NCN OPUS; 2017/25/B/HS3/00520, (PI: prof. dr hab. Karol Szymczak)
  2. Three human species in Middle Upper Palaeolithic of Central Asia- an archaeological perspective; NCN OPUS; 2011/03/B/HS3/00473, (PI: prof. dr hab. Karol Szymczak)
  3. Settlement of the Sąspow Valley from Palaeolithic up to Modern times- elaboration of the unpublished fielwork results of prof. Waldemar Chmielewski ; NCN SONATA BIS; 2016/22/E/HS3/00486, (PI: dr hab. Małgorzata Kot)
  4. Scar pattern analysis method. Testing the procedures. NCN SONATA; 2016/21/D/HS3/02665, (PI: dr hab. Małgorzata Kot)
  5. Environment and climate reconstruction in Central Italy between Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Testing direct radiometric dating method on the small mammal bones from Grotta della Ferrovia; NCN MINIATURA-4; 2020/04/X/ST10/01659, (PI: dr hab. Claudio Berto)

 

recently conducted fieldworks:

  1. Middle Palaeolithic open-air site of Zwoleń near Radom
  2. Kuksaray 2 – Middle Palaeolithic loess open-air site located in the western foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains, Angren district (Uzbekistan)
  3. Kyzyl Dara – high-altitude site with rock engravings located in the western foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains (Uzbekistan)
  4. Excavations in cave sites located in the western foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains (Uzbekistan)
  5. Pod Oknem Cave (Wisieluch) near Kroczyce, Zawiercie County – Upper Palaeolithic site located in the northern part of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland.
  6. Getahovit 2 – Upper Palaeolithic, Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic cave campsite in the Tavush region, Northern Armenia.
  7.  Szczepanki (Masuria) – peat-bog site of hunter-gatherers
  8. Dudka (Masuria) – cemetery and campsites of hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age
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Dudka – cemetery and campsites of hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age

Excavation conducted by (renew from 2023): Dr Karolina Bugajska and Dr hab. Witold Gumiński
Localisation: NE Poland, Masurian Lakeland, Wydminy commune, Giżycko district
Involved institutions: Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw
Type of the site: Stone Age peat-bog site with the cemetery of hunter-gatherers

Description of the site: Exceptional cemetery with very diversified burials from the Late Mesolithic and Para-Neolithic, and habitation sites of hunter-gatherers from the Late Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Para-Neolithic (Zedmar culture) till the Late Neolithic. Complex stratigraphy and preserved bones and wooden materials, besides amber, stone, flint and pottery make the site unique.

Research project:
NCN Opus 20; nr 2020/39/B/HS3/02375, Absolute chronology of burials and loose human bones from the hunter-gatherer Stone Age sites Dudka and Szczepanki in Masuria (NE-Poland).
Published results of the project:
– Bugajska, K. (2023). Purified by fire: Cremation burials in the Stone Age hunter-gatherer cemetery at Dudka, Masuria, northeast Poland. Documenta Praehistorica, 50, 110-135. https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.50.10
– Bugajska, K. (2024). Loose human bones as evidence of the multi-step burial rite: Case study of the Stone Age hunter-gatherer sites at Dudka and Szczepanki, Masuria (northeastern Poland), Přehled výzkumů 65/1, 2024 X 103–137 https://doi.org/10.47382/pv0651-05

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Hammersø – lake

Person conducting excavation: prof. Bartosz Kontny
Country: Danmark
Site name: Hammersø Lake, Bornholm
Type of the site:  
Involved institutions: Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw; Bornholms Museum
Dating: late Middle Ages-modernity

Description of the research: Since 2019 an archaeological team from the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw has been conducting underwater survey in a postglacial Lake Hammersø, in collaboration with the Bornholm Museum in Rønne. The only tarn in the territory of Denmark is located in the Hammeren region, i.e. the northernmost part of Bornholm (55°16′58″N, 14°45′54″E). It is the largest lake on the island, measuring ca. 650×150 metres with the maximum depth of ca. 13 metres. The project revealed certain phenomena from the lake’s past. A few phases of occupation may be singled out, offering a longue durée sequence of habitation in the area, from the Middle Ages until now. The most fascinating are late medieval/early modern episodes. The martial one is documented by the discoveries of several crossbow bolts and an arrowhead. With another, possibly of a ritual character, one may associate a find of a lugged spearhead and possibly also an axe. There are non-military late Medieval finds as well: ring-shaped brooch and a seal stamp. All of them give a promising perspective for combining with the  history of the Hammershus castle – the largest medieval structure of that type in northern Europe – situated ca 1.5 kilometres as the crow flies. The relics of contemporary human water-related activities were also discovered in the basin: three wrecks of tourist plank-boats from the turn of the 20th century, which might be associated with the hotel’s presence, and a number of metal objects; their presence resulted from the stone industry, active until AD 1970. One may add to the list numerous fishing hooks and lures (not collected), proving the twentieth-century fishing – apparently not very intensive.

 

 

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ECHOES OF ANTIQUITY – International interdisciplinary conference

ECHOES OF ANTIQUITY – CALL FOR PAPERS

We kindly invite specialists and young researchers from various disciplines to take part in the second edition of the interdisciplinary international conference „Echoes of Antiquity” which will take place at The University of Warsaw and The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw, the 15–16th of June 2023.

Continue reading “ECHOES OF ANTIQUITY – International interdisciplinary conference”

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Puszcza Augustowska – early medieval cemeteries with cremation

Person conducting excavation: dr hab. Tomasz Nowakiewicz
Country: Poland
Site name:  Augustów Primeval Forest, area of Szczeberka river
Type of the site: early medieval cemeteries with cremation

Description of the research: The aim of excavation is research of cemeteries of Yatvingian elites from the 12th-13th centuries. Layers with the remains of funeral pyres containing rich burial assemblages were explored. The result of the research provides the best illustration of the material culture of early medieval Yatvingia (vel Sudovia), confirming the meaning of medieval historical sources, which emphasise the wealth and military power of the inhabitants of this land.

 

 

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Dudka – cmentarzysko i obozowiska łowców-zbieraczy z epoki kamienia

Kierownicy badań: (wznowienie od 2023): dr Karolina Bugajska i dr hab. Witold Gumiński
Miejsce badań: Dudka
Kraj: Polska
Instytucje uczestniczące w badaniach: Wydział Archeologii UW
Charakter stanowiska: cmentarzysko

Cmentarzysko i obozowiska łowców-zbieraczy z epoki kamienia – późny paleolit, mezolit, para-neolit. Stanowisko torfowe z zachowanymi kośćmi i drewnami, prócz tego ceramika, wytwory krzemienne, kamienne, bursztynowe i różnych skamielin.

Aktualnie realizowany jest projekt badawczy dotyczący praktyk pogrzebowych na stanowisku Dudka i sąsiednim stanowisku Szczepanki:
NCN Opus 20; nr 2020/39/B/HS3/02375 Chronologia bezwzględna pochówków i luźnych kości ludzkich ze stanowisk łowiecko-zbierackich epoki kamienia Dudka i Szczepanki na Mazurach
publikacje wyników projektu:

Bugajska, K. (2023). Purified by fire: Cremation burials in the Stone Age hunter-gatherer cemetery at Dudka, Masuria, northeast Poland. Documenta Praehistorica, 50, 110-135. https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.50.10

Bugajska, K. (2024)
Loose human bones as evidence of the multi-step burial rite: Case study of the Stone Age hunter-gatherer sites at Dudka and Szczepanki, Masuria (northeastern Poland), Přehled výzkumů 65/1, 2024 X 103–137
https://doi.org/10.47382/pv0651-05

 

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