Medieval Populations of the Mazovian-Rus’ Frontier in the Time of Christianization

Preliminary Results of Archaeological and Genetic Analyses

Abstract

The territory of former Eastern Poland formed part of the wider ethno-cultural frontier developed between Polish Mazovia and Turovian Rus’ and Volhynia between the second half of the 10th and the second half of the 13th century. Overall, its mosaic-like cultural landscape was formed by the traditional, pagan background and Christian influences reflecting direct contact between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as the political border started to take shape, probably in the first half of the 11th century. The main markers of the cultural change related to the religious conversion are inhumation graves, appearing as barrows, cemeteries with stone-kerbed graves and the flat graveyards of rural populations and proto-urban societies. Individuals chosen from all of these were archaeo-genetically examined. Genetic analyses show, for example, that the people who built the stone-kerbed graves in the Drohiczyn Upland, from the second half of the 11th century forming the most western part of the Rus’ territory, were different from their neighbours settling other parts of the region in the same period. This observation corresponds with studies of the development of settlement, spatially and chronologically, which show that a »rapid« growth of settlement in this area could be due to a planned colonization after a state territorial annexation in the second quarter of the 11th century. The existence of a genetic continuity between the medieval population of the Polish-Ruthenian frontier and modern populations from Central, Northern and Eastern Europe must also be considered. Thus, genetic analyses can define new fields of research and provide new arguments for ethno-cultural interpretations.