page_title: Poland in antiquity
section_title: Migrations of Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures people
hierarchical_section_title: Poland in antiquity / "Barbarians", Late Roman Empire and the Great Migration of Peoples / Migrations of Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures people
caption_attribution_description: English: place where there was an Vandalic burials Deutsch: Der umfangreichste vandalische Grabfunde aus dem 2.-4. Jahrh. n. Chr. (die Bezeichnung Przeworsk-Kultur) zwischen Prusiek und Markowce am Sanoczek Bach, Kr. Sanok. Blick von der Dorfkirche Richtung Süden, 2011
context_page_description: Poland in antiquity was characterized by peoples belonging to various archeological cultures living in and migrating through various parts of the territory that now constitutes Poland, in an era that dates from about 400 BCE to 450–500 CE. These people are identified as Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Thracian, Avar, and Scythian tribes. Other groups, which are difficult to identify, were most likely also present, as the ethnic compositions of archeological cultures are often poorly recognized. While lacking use of a written language to any appreciable degree, many of them developed relatively advanced material culture and social organization, as evidenced by the archeological record; for example, richly furnished, "princely" dynastic graves.
  Characteristic of the period was a high rate of geographical migration of large groups of people, even the equivalents of modern nations. The La Tène period is subdivided into:
  La Tène A, 450–400 BCE
  La Tène B, 400–250 BCE
  La Tène C, 250–150 BCE
  La Tène D, 150–0 BCE
  The centuries 400–200 BCE are also considered the early pre-Roman period, and the centuries 200–0 BCE the younger pre-Roman period.
context_section_description: In the 2nd century CE the Proto-Gothic people of the Wielbark culture began their own great migration, moving east, south, and southeast. In the first half of the 3rd century they left most of Pomerania except for the lower Vistula region, where a small Wielbark population remained; Pomerania west of there became mostly settled by the Dębczyn group. Also evacuated at that time northern Greater Poland was retaken by the Przeworsk culture people. The Wielbark people successively took over eastern Masovia, Lesser Poland, Podlasie, Polesie and Volhynia. They settled in Ukraine, where they encountered other peoples, which resulted in the early 3rd century CE in the rise of the Chernyakhov culture. This last culture, which in the 4th century encompassed large areas of southeastern Europe, was of a mixed ethnic composition; in the more western part it was made-up of the Wielbark culture people, as well as other Germanic people and the Dacians. It was within the Chernyakhov culture that the Gothic tribes assumed their mature form.
  The Przeworsk culture populations were for the most part also moving (to a lesser extent) south and east, which by the 4th century caused a lessening of the population density in northern and central Poland with a simultaneous settlement concentration increases in Lesser Poland and Silesia. The Przeworsk people there at this point in time are often identified with the Vandals Germanic tribe. The 4th and 5th century Przeworsk societies had to cope with a deterioration of their traditional tribal social structure, caused by the accumulation of wealth and influence in the hands of the rich, the warriors, the tribal elders and rulers, who controlled the trade, imposed contributions and plundered. During these two centuries the number of the Przeworsk culture settlements and cemeteries generally decreases. There are also clear signs of the environment being overly exploited, which provided another motivation for the population to gradually leave. Most burials were getting more poorly equipped, in comparison with the previous periods. Late Przeworsk culture ceramic materials from Greater Poland show impoverishment and lack of differentiation of form, but on the other hand metal 5th century clasps, found at a variety of locations from eastern Lesser Poland, through eastern Greater Poland to Kujawy, demonstrate the usual for mature Germanic societies highest quality of workmanship.
caption: Vandalic burial cemetery in Prusiek, Poland
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