Vampires, criminals or slaves? Reinterpreting ‘deviant burials’ in early medieval Poland

Abstract

Unusual funerary behaviour is now an exciting area of research in Central and Western European archaeology. In Poland, since the first half of the twentieth century, finds of atypical or deviant burials have been almost exclusively interpreted as evidence for so-called 'anti-vampire' practices, intended to prevent the dead from rising, haunting and hurting the living. In the last decade or so, new attempts have been made, especially in the UK, to develop more sophisticated understandings of deviant burials, and to perceive them not only in the context of popular superstition, but also with regard to judicial practices. Inspired by these new developments, this paper offers a range of new interpretations of deviant burials from early medieval Poland with a focus on burials where people were buried in a prone position, decapitated or covered with stones.

A grain against a vampire? Some remarks on so-called anti-vampire practices in the light of archaeological and folkloristic-ethnographic data

“…Literature on this subject is abundant, and there has recently been an increase in interest in this issue thanks to works of L. Gardeła (2017). This issue was previously successfully explored by Ł. M. Stanaszek (1998;, worth noting are also works of P. Duma 2010, P. Żydok 2004, A. Falis 2008, L. Gardeła and P. Duma 2013and L. Gardeła and K. Kajkowski 2013.…”

Between belief and fear - Reinterpreting prone burials during the Middle Ages and early modern period in German-speaking Europe

“…Interestingly, no medieval source documents prone burial as a mean to ban revenants [47]. Alternative explanations for deviant burials, such as judicial practices, have only recently been suggested [48,49].…”

“…Apart from prone and side position, other apotropaic practices are associated with Slavic traditions, too. Body manipulation, decapitation, stoning, nailing, sickles across the throat and stakes through the heart have been observed in Eastern Germany [96,124], Poland [48,125,126], Czech Republic [30,33], and Slovakia [127,128]. The climax of these practices is from the 11 th to 13 th century, after the transition from cremation to inhumation burials and the introduction of Christianity.…”

“…The very few exceptions include secondary manipulations of the grave and do not fall into the period under study [137]. Thus, those practices seem to be limited to Eastern Europe and the former Slavic territory [48].…”

Violence and Perimortem Signaling among Early Irrigation Communities in the Sonoran Desert

“…I believe the answers to these questions would allow confirmation or falsification of the presented hypothesis. The localization of the nonnormative graves and origin of the individuals buried within them have been proved to be very informative (Gardeła and Kajkowski 2013;Gregoricka et al 2014).…”