Content:
In the last decades strontium isotope analyses have became a wide applied method of tracing movement of humans and animals in archaeology beside traditional archaeological methods used so far like object attribution. As every method, stable isotope analysis has its strengths and weaknesses.
In my speech, I would like to present and discuss the experience gained from the use of strontium stable isotope analysis to investigate provenencing and mobility of medieval communities living in Poland (Mazovia and Podlachia regions), burying their dead in graves with stone structures. Cemeteries with stone settings have been the subject of interest for researchers and amateurs for over a hundred years. One of the main questions concerns the origin of people buried in this type of cemeteries. Were they the local Slavic individuals or newcomers from other areas, e.g. from Scandinavia or Rus’, who brought a specific funeral rite with them. So far, attempts have been made to answer this question using traditional archaeological methods, such as ethnic attribution of graves constructions and objects, which provided contradictory results. As part of the research project Populus Masoviae Medii Aevi, it was decided to use the method of stable strontium isotopes analysis to answer this question. Samples were taken from human and animal bone remains unearthed during earlier excavations and stored in museum resources. The conducted research has provided the largest database of isotope signatures collected so far for the Polish lands. They allowed us to answer some research questions, but also created some methodological and interpretation problems.