Symposium in Pomeranian Studies, Gdańsk, 18-20 November 2015

This year’s 20th Symposium in Pomeranian Studies was attended by 175 participants from Poland, among them six members of the MPOV Project Team who contributed four papers addressed on subjects related to the research made within the Project.

On Thursday, 19 November, during the afternoon session, prof. dr hab. Henryk Machajewski presented a paper on the current status and issues of the research in the Younger pre-Roman Period, the Roman Period and the early phase of the Migration Period (Polish title: Stan i potrzeby badań nad młodszym okresem przedrzymskim, okresem wpływów rzymskich i wczesną fazą okresu wędrówek ludów); his contribution was followed by a lively discussion.

Prof. Aleksander Bursche and dr Bartłomiej Rogalski reported on the progress of the investigation of the settlement site at Suchań, commune Suchań, district Stargard Szczeciński, made within the MPOV Project, the site of discovery of a Migration Period hoard.

The following day prof. Jan Schuster presented a paper on Scandinavian arrivals at Czarnówko, district Lębork (Polish title: Skandynawscy przybysze w Czarnówku pow. Lębork) in which he argued that graves with an early Migration Period dating identified in the cemetery are not a continuation of the Roman Period burial ground and are more likely to confirm the presence of a population from Scandinavia arrived in the region during the second half of the 5th century.

Finally, prof. Aleksander Bursche and mgr Marcin Rudnicki presented a paper addressed on the Migration Period in northern Poland in the light of the most recent research (Polish title: Okres wędrówek ludów w północnej Polsce w świetle najnowszych badań) and made a review of the first results of multidisciplinary studies made within the MPOV Project.

A special highlight of the conference was the first ever presentation to the public in Poland of an assemblage of zoo- and anthropomorphic artefacts in silver sheet repoussé recovered on the lower Vistula which has been provenanced to the Black Sea region and in its ideological dimension corresponds to the Germanic pantheon. During the discussion prof. Wojciech Nowakowski expressed his agreement with the main arguments of the two last named papers and congratulated the MPOV Team members on the Project research results.

AB