A typical early Slavic hut from the 6th–7th century (after K. Godłowski,
digital processing: A. Buko).
Szeligi near Płock: reconstruction of an early Slavic
fortified settlement of the 6th century (after T. Kordala).
The material culture of the Slavs from the first phase of
the Early Middle Ages became the focus of interest in Poland in the mid-1950s.
Since then quite a lot of time has passed yet the number of discovered and
excavated early Slavic sites of the earliest phase is still quite small. For
that reason the material evidence is scant, which leads to weaknesses in
argumentation and makes it impossible to settle the debate on the origin of the
Slavs. The beginnings of the Slavs’ settlement of Polish lands are usually fixed
for the turn of the 5th and 6th century; in the late 6th or the early 7th
century they are thought to have reached the middle Elbe and Saale.
The advocates of the allochthonous theory assume that the
material correlates of the early Slavs are not uniform in Polish lands and vary
across the area. This fact is interpreted as an outcome of the Slavs’ contacts
with local milieus of other peoples, including the older Germanic population.
At the same time it is stressed that in the region a set of features
characteristic for all the Slavs can be distinguished. The most distinctive
features are the settlement form, economy, crafts and burial rites.
Settlement form
Typically open settlements consisting of a few square
sunken-floored huts with an oven in the corner located along the river valleys.
There are no fortified sites.
The early Slavic hut is generally considered as an important
trait of this people. That form of habitation which developed in the 3rd–4th
century especially within the Cherniakhovo Culture (the Prut and Dniester
basins in Ukraine) traveled with the Slavs to the west. These structures are
quite characteristic: usually they had 3–4 meter long walls and in their classical
form these were square 4 x 4 m huts, although the dimensions might have varied
in different regions; in Polish lands their average floor area was 13 m2. Most
often they were sunken in the ground down to no more than several dozen
centimeters. In one of the corners (usually the north-eastern one) there was a
heating device in the form of a 0.5 x 0.5 m stone oven. Surprisingly, this type
of structure did not appear in Great Poland and Pomerania. Instead so-called
tub-shaped (slightly sunken oval) 2 x 3 m features of unclear function sunken
in the ground to c. 0.5 m are found there. None of them had an oven.
The advocates of the autochthonous theory see more
similarities between the early Slavic and Przeworsk culture huts than between
the Slavic and Germanic structures. Namely, except for a few cases (e.g., Wólka
Łasiecka),
the Slavs had no tradition of the long house so popular among the Germans,
commonly appearing in the area between the Rhine and Elbe and in Scandinavia.
Thus if the population inhabiting the Polish lands before the Slavs was of
Germanic origin, how can it be explained that it did not build houses following
the tradition of the latter? It is worth noting here that the Przeworsk culture
had an incomparably greater variety of structures than the early Slavs. The
analyses of the arrangement of buildings in Slavic settlements shows that,
unlike the Roman ones, they were not arranged in a circle surrounding an empty
central area and had no separate production zones. In this respect the
arrangements of houses in the Slavic settlements resemble the later peasant
farmsteads commonly known from Polish lands. The huts and settlement patterns
were gradually replaced by above-ground buildings in the 7th or early 8th
century. The followers of the autochthonous theory, however, add that circular
villages were not entirely unknown among the Slavic population as there is a group
of sites (e.g., Biskupin, Dessau-Mossigkau) where such settlements were
identified and excavated.
The origin of fortified settlements is another debatable
issue. It is generally assumed that they did not appear during the initial
phase of the Slavs’ settlement; they were first built when the lands had been
well settled, that is, in the tribal period; in extreme cases their origin was
dated to the late 9th century. However, in some areas, including the Polish
lands, fortified settlements are known from the earlier phase of the Early
Middle Ages, although their character and functions have not been ultimately
established. It is possible that such features as Szeligi near Płock,
or Haćki
in Podlasie were of symbolic and ceremonial rather than military character.
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