News from Suchań
2013.08.05 -
Half way through the fieldwork at Suchań we can now report on the first results: several small pits discovered in the excavation trench contained pottery dated to the mature Migration Period. This is actually quite an important piece of good news as it confirms that the deposit containing Scandinavian bracteats and pendants may have been hidden within a settlement then in use. Samples (microelements) secured from the excavated features will be subjected to C14 analysis.
An investigation made at Suchań and in its surrounding area by the team of paleobotanists from the University of Gdańsk led by Professor Małgorzata Latałowa confirmed that all the local peatland and lakes are drained for agriculture; worse still, most of them are flow-through and cannot be expected to yield pollen cores suitable for the palynology analysis of sediments from the 1st millennium AD. The team relocated to Buczek (distr. Białogard) and identified two lakes to the east of the village as a potential site for pollen profile-taking, to be made still in 2013. This will be the first palynology profile from the territory of the Dębczyno Group, an area with long-standing Germanic settlement, possibly lasting until the 6th century and, at the same time, one with a very early record on Slav occupation.
Prof. Aleksander Bursche, Dr Bartosz Rogalski and Mgr Krzysztof Kowalski, head of the Archaeology Department National Museum in Szczecin, invited mgr ing. Stanisława Bodnar, the Mayor of Suchań, to extend an honorary sponsorship over the exhibition of the archaeology of Suchań and its area, to be held next year at the National Museum in Szczecin. The Mayor graciously accepted and promised to help us secure local landowner consent for the 2014 excavation season.
The Photographs are by B. Rogalski
