Publication details

Možnosti a meze výzkumu pohřebišť novokřtěnců na jižní Moravě z pohledu biologické antropologie, historie a religionistiky

Title in English The Possibilities and Limits of Research on Anabaptist Burial Sites in South Moravia from the Perspectives of Biological Anthropology, History and Religious Studies
Authors

VALTROVÁ Jana UNGER Josef CHOCHOLÁČ Bronislav PĚNIČKA Robin ŠTĚPÁNKOVÁ Andrea JURDA Mikoláš MACHÁŇOVÁ Veronika KVARDA Ondřej JURAS Anna SALESSE Kévin Alexis André CHYLEŃSKI Maciej KOKTAVÁ Nikola EHLER Edvard NIKOLAJOVÁ Nikola KLÍMA Ondřej CIGÁN Jakub MOŘKOVSKÝ Tomáš KRÁLÍK Miroslav

Year of publication 2023
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Anthropologia Integra
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web Stránky vydavatele.
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/AI2023-2-7
Keywords Anabaptists; Hutterites; funerary practices; burial sites; skeletal remains; South Moravia
Attached files
Description The study deals with the problem of identification and localization of Anabaptist burial sites in South Moravia. The Anabaptists were an internally diverse religious current of the Reformation that emerged in the 1520s in areas with German-speaking populations. As a result of persecution by religiously major Catholic or Protestant authorities, they were migrating to Moravia since 1526. The Anabaptists differed from the local population in their ethnic origin, language, way of life, and religious beliefs. They left a distinctive and still noticeable trace in Moravian culture. Very little information is available about their burial sites, graves, funerary traditions, and human remains. In this article, we seek to summarize and confront information on the existing finds of skeletons and their inventories that might belong to one of the Anabaptist groups with historical records of their settlements or burial sites directly. Comparison and identification of burial sites are hampered by incompleteness in all sources of records. For some settlements, we have historical records of burials, but we do not have archaeological reports of skeletons found to date. There are sketchy references to skeletons found associated with other sites, but more detailed archaeological reports are not available. The clear identification of skeletal remains as belonging to Anabaptists is challenging due to indistinct and non-specific nature of the funerary practices, the confessional diversity, and the relatively short time of the Anabaptists’ stay in Moravia. The sites mentioned in the article may belong to the Anabaptists, but the certainty established with the help of laboratory methods is currently available only for the burial site in Přibice (Brno-venkov district). The inventory of potential Anabaptist burial sites compiled here can serve as a starting point for verifying the origin of the persons buried there using modern natural science methods - analysis of ancient DNA and isotopes.
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