Kilka uwag na marginesie badań stosunków społecznych ludności „łużyckiej”

Abstract

The presented paper aims at addressing one of aspects of study of social relations in the Lusatian culture, namely exclusion of some children bodies from the kin cemetery. In the course of the Lusatian culture development, this self-inclusiveness of human groups ceased leading to attributing the kin status even to the newborns. However, recent studies of numerous Lusatian cemeteries seem to question this hypothesis. This discrepancy can be partly explained by burying some infants, as well as adults, in consecrated places outside the kin cemeteries. This is well manifested in case of the settlement at Łęczyska, Łodź province where dozens of children and adults have been buried in distinctively isolated three zones, which correspond to the triple model of the rite de passage. This clearly implies that even individuals, otherwise excluded from a given social group, are treated with due honor and respected after the death so their souls can be granted eternal peace.