Wielbark culture

The Wielbark culture (German: Wielbark-Willenberg-Kultur, Polish: Kultura wielbarska, Ukrainian: Вельбарська культура/Velbarska kultura) or East Pomeranian-Mazovian is part of an Iron Age archaeological complex that dates from the 1st century AD to the 4th century AD.

It replaced the Oksywie culture, in the area of modern-day Eastern Pomerania around the lower Vistula river, which was related to the Przeworsk culture.

Wielbark culture contained Venedi, Rugians, Goths, and Gepids located mainly in Pomerania and West Prussia later spreading down the east side into Podlasie and the southern Ukraine.

The Wielbark culture was named after a village where a burial place with over 3,000 tombs, attributed to the Goths and Gepids, was discovered back in 1873. Many of the cemetery stones were moved, and many graves were damaged by the early German discoverers. The report of the original excavation, lost during World War II was rediscovered only in 2004 and is about to be analysed in a cooperation of Polish scientists from Gdańsk, Warszawa, Kraków, and Lublin.

The Wielbark culture started out covering the same area as the Oksywie culture, around the present day towns of Gdańsk and Chełmno. Later it reached into the lakelands (Kashubian and Krajenskian lakes) and stretched southwards, into the region around Poznań.

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