A Przeworsk Culture Inhumation Burial from Siechnice (Lower Silesia) and the Question of Biritualism in the Pre-Roman Iron Age

Abstract

In the course of rescue excavations at a multicultural site in Siechnice (pow. Wrocław / PL), an isolated younger Pre-Roman Iron Age Przeworsk culture burial was recorded. It contained well-preserved remains of a c. 30/35-year-old male individual. The assemblage of grave furnishings suggested that the burial dates to the turn of the 2nd and the 1st century BC. This would make it one of the oldest Przeworsk culture assemblages recorded in the southern part of Lower Silesia. At that time, cremation clearly dominated over inhumation in the Germanic cultures. It was only in Lower Silesia, Kuyavia and western Lesser Poland, where a small number of sites with inhumation burials was found. The presence of those has long
been interpreted as a result of the La Tène culture impact on the indigenous communities. However, the authors of this paper argue that untypical funerary practices might be explained by factors other than ethnicity. The scientific analyses of the individual buried in the Siechnice grave demonstrated that he was of local origin and died in a relatively good biological condition. Also, the artefacts recorded in this burial were typical of Przeworsk culture.