The site is a unique feature in the landscape of the Hrubieszów valley.

Location and description

The barrow cemetery is located at the south-western edge of the village, about 1.5 kilometres away from the centre and 100 metres to the north from the buildings comprising the village of Staszic, near the road between Staszic and Uchanie. It is located on a flat section of a small loess promontory which slopes down towards the valley of an unnamed watercourse, with a deep ravine towards the west separating it from the rest of the surrounding terrain. The cemetery is located on a wooded lot no. 777/136, in section no. 8 of the forest known locally as “Bundysz”, owned by the State Forests Holding (Strzelce Forest District, Jarosławiec sub-district).

The cemetery is made up of eleven burial mounds of varying sizes, arranged in a line about 60 metres in length, covering an area of approximately 0.5 hectares. Their height is between 0.3 and 0.7 metres, while their diameter is between 4 and 7 metres. The site has not been targeted by illegal digging in recent times. Traces of earlier digging can be seen in the central section of one of the barrows (barrow no. 8), the dimensions of the opening being 1.0 x 0.70 metres, 0.70 metres in depth. The site of the cemetery is overgrown by a mixed forest and rather sparse undergrowth.

History

The barrow cemetery located in the area which today forms part of the village of Jarosławiec originates from the early Middle Ages (8th - 10th century).

The barrow cemetery in Jarosławiec was first mentioned in the literature on the subject by Stefan Nosek in 1957. The relatively substantial degree of levelling of the mounds is due to the fact that before World War II, the necropolis formed part of arable fields. The fact that trees were subsequently planted here from the 1950s onwards has undoubtedly contributed towards the preservations of the surface relics of the cemetery.

Condition and results of archaeological research

No archaeological excavations have been carried out on the site. Surface surveys of the site within the framework of the ‘Archaeological Picture of Poland’ project were carried out in 1997 by Wiesław Koman. An inventory of measurements of the burial mounds was prepared by Józef Niedźwiedź and Adam Medak in 1987.

Accessible historic building.

compiled by Ewa Prusicka, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Lublin, 10-09-2015.

Bibliography

• Nosek S., Materiały do badań nad historią starożytną i wczesnośredniowieczną międzyrzecza Wisły i Bugu, “Annales UMCS, vol. VI, sec. F, 1951 (1957), p. 370
• Niedźwiedź J., Koman W., Okolice Hrubieszowa w pradziejach i we wczesnym średniowieczu, Hrubieszów 1996, p. 83.
• Prusicka - Kołcon E., Niedźwiedź J., Hrubieszów stan. 33 gm. Uchanie [in:] Inwentaryzacja kurhanów powiatu hrubieszowskiego. Katalog. Zamość 2006 (typescript available at the archive of the Regional Monuments Protection Office, Zamość Branch).