Kończyny, kości i wtórnie otwarte groby w dawnych kulturach Limbs, Bones, and Reopened Graves in Past Societies 85 Tylko do użytku służbowego 85 Kalina Skóra łódź BIRITUAL BURIALS OF THE WIELBARK CULTURE – INTRODUCTORY REMARKS INTRODUCTION Biritualism of cemeteries is a distinguishing feature of burial rites in the Wielbark culture. Inhumation appears in Pomerania in the later Pre-Roman Period, but its spread during the Roman Period did not mean that it ousted an earlier tradition of cremation (e.g. Walenta 1980/81; Margos 2000). Changes of burial rites do not bear traits of mass conversion and we can observe a co-existence of two funeral tra- ditions. A mutual relation of the share of inhumation and cremation in the Wielbark culture demonstrates a chronological and territorial dif- ferentiation, which is explained by various conditions (e.g. influences of local funeral traditions of predecessors, incorporation of habits of communities belonging to neighbouring cultures, migration of groups which followed specific funeral rites, instability of settlement in times of migration and a related factor of labour intensity of burial rites 1 1 In traditional cultures one can observe a relation between cremation and nomadic and warlike tribes. Inhumation is seen as a ritual of peoples who are bound to their lands and abandon the nomadic way of life in favour of agriculture (Thomas 1991: 176; Gajewska 2009: 17). The cremation burial had more practical significance for warriors – it was a form of protection against profanation in cases when it was not possible to take the body home (Gajewska 2009: 21).