Latest news with #Piasts
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Science
- The Herald Scotland
First kings of Poland may have had roots in Scotland
The origins of the Piasts is unclear, however, and has been debated by scientists for decades. A scarcity of sources means there are significant gaps in the historical record, with theories of their beginnings including them having been local Slavic chieftains, exiles from Moravia in the modern day Czech Republic, or Viking warriors. Read More: Now though, advanced DNA testing carried out by Professor Marek Figlerowicz from Poznań University of Technology has suggested the Piasts could, in fact, be related to the Picts of ancient Scotland. Working alongside the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, scientists analysed the skeletal remains found in more than a dozen crypts from the Piast era, including from Płock Cathedral, where remains dated from 1100 to 1495. Analysis was carried out on 30 males and 33 females, with the former all sharing a rare halogroup on the Y-chromosome which today is found primarily in Britain. One of the closest comparisons genetically was a Pictish man buried in eastern Scotland in the Fifth or Sixth Century. Professor Figlerowicz said at a conference in Poznań: "There is no doubt we are dealing with genuine Piasts." Mieszko I's warriors (Image: SebbeKG/Wikimedia) The results clearly show that the first Polish kings did not have local origins, though it's unclear when their ancestors arrived in the land. Professor Figlerowicz believes strategic alliances through marriage could be the answer, pointing to Świętosława, sister of Bolesław the Brave, who married kings of Denmark and Sweden and became the mother of rulers of England, Denmark, and Norway. Bolesław I was the first king of Poland, the son of Mieszko I, the founder of the unified nation. However, some scientists have urged caution in the Pictish interpretation. Dr Dariusz Błaszczyk of the University of Warsaw's Institute of Archaeology has questioned the Poznań team's identification of the haplogroup (R1b-S747) which he suggested may in fact be the result of a contamination or sequencing error. The possible link between the Picts and the Piasts is far from the only historical tie between the two countries, however. Bonnie Prince Charlie, leader of the Jacobite uprising, was half-Polish as his mother, Maria Clementina Sobieska, was born in Silesia. She was the granddaughter of Jan Sobieski III, who was king of Poland from 1674 until 1696. From the 16th to 18th Century, thousands of Scots merchants travelled to Poland to trade and, in many cases, settle. Thomas A Fischer described Poland as "the America of those days", while writing in 1632 William Lithgow called it "a Mother and Nurse, for the youth and younglings of Scotland, who are yearly sent hither in great numbers". The latter stated that there were 30,000 Scottish families in Poland at the time, with most coming from the east coast, in particular Aberdeen and Dundee. With a strong demand for foreign goods, Scots travelled the countryside on foot selling things like needles, knives, brooches, and woollen goods. They were not universally welcomed, accused of undercutting local merchants and failing to obey the laws of the land, with King Sigismund III declaring: "that among others there is here a large number of the Scottish nation, most of whom we are informed live licentiously, recognising neither judges nor jurisdiction nor any laws nor any superior, whence it comes that impunity being so complete, that they not only offend seriously against the laws of the Realm, but also cause great loss to our customs and revenue". Read more: A 1564 decree taxed Scots on the same level of Jews and Gypsies, who were second class subjects, and two years later another law made it illegal for Scots to roam the country when carrying out their business. The effects of this mass immigration can be seen today: in the Kashubian dialect of north-central Poland the traditional word for a commercial traveller is 'szot' (Scot), and there is a village in the Kuyavia-Pomerania region called Szkocja (Scotland). Gdansk has districts called Nowe Szkoty (New Scotland) and Stare Szkoty (Old Scotland) and many Polish second names are transliterations of Scots surnames: Czochran (Cochrane), Machlejd (MacLeod), Szynkler (Sinclair). One of the survivors of the 1944 Warsaw rising was Wanda Machlejd, who served as a runner for the resistance. She was the was the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great granddaughter of a mercenary soldier from Skye who travelled to fight in the Thirty Years War. The Rising ultimately collapsed and Wanda was sent to a prison camp, which was liberated by a Scottish division of the British army. She was moved to a camp for displaced persons and tracked down by intelligence officer Stuart Macleod, who organised for her to be brought to Dunvegan Castle on Skye to recover before returning to Poland. Most Polish soldiers based in the UK during the Second World War were based in Scotland, with a flight training unit for Polish pilots operating from Grangemouth and a military staff college established near Peebles. As of June 2021 there were approximately 62,000 Polish nationals living in Scotland, the most common non-British nationality. Other than English and Scots, Polish is the language most spoken at home in Scotland. Many cities have Polish societies and Polish shops, with the town of Duns in Berwickshire twinned with Zagan in the west of Poland.
The Independent
12-06-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Bones exhumed from cathedral reveal secrets of medieval kings
For two centuries, scholars have sparred over the roots of the Piasts, Poland 's first documented royal house, who reigned from the 10th to the 14th centuries. Were they local Slavic nobles, Moravian exiles, or warriors from Scandinavia? Since 2023, a series of genetic and environmental studies led by molecular biologist Marek Figlerowicz at the Poznań University of Technology has delivered a stream of direct evidence about these enigmatic rulers, bringing the debate onto firmer ground. Digging up the dynasty Field teams have now opened more than a dozen crypts from the Piast era. The largest single haul came from Płock Cathedral in what is now central Poland. The exhumed bones were dated between 1100 and 1495, matching written records. Genetic analysis showed several individuals were close relatives. 'There is no doubt we are dealing with genuine Piasts,' Dr Figlerowicz told a May 2025 conference. The Poznań group isolated readable DNA from 33 individuals (30 men and three women) believed to span the dynasty's full timeline. Surprise on the Y chromosome The male skeletons almost all carry a single, rare group of genetic variants on the Y chromosome (which is only carried and passed down by males). This group is today found mainly in Britain. The closest known match belongs to a Pict buried in eastern Scotland in the 5th or 6th century. These results imply that the dynasty's paternal line arrived from the vicinity of the North Atlantic, not nearby. The date of that arrival is still open: the founding clan could have migrated centuries before the first known Piast, Mieszko I (who died in 992), or perhaps only a generation earlier through a dynastic marriage. Either way, the new data kill the notion of an unbroken local male lineage. Yet genetics also shows deep local continuity in the wider population. A separate survey of Iron Age cemeteries across Poland, published in Scientific Reports, revealed that people living 2,000 years ago already shared the genetic makeup seen in early Piast subjects. Another project that sequenced pre-Piast burials drew the same conclusion: local Poles were part of the broader continental gene pool stretching from Denmark to France. In short, even if the Piasts were exotic rulers, they governed a long-established community. A swamp tells its tale While the DNA work progressed, another Poznań team dug into the history of the local environment via samples from the peaty floor of Lake Lednica near Poznań, the island-ringed stronghold often dubbed the cradle of the Piast realm. Their study of buried pollen, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows an abrupt switch in the 9th century: oak and lime pollen plummet, while cereal and pasture indicators soar. Traces of charcoal and soot point to widespread fires. The authors call the shift an 'ecological revolution', driven by slash-and-burn agriculture and the need to feed concentrated garrisons of soldiers guarding local trade routes carrying amber and slaves. Modelling boom and bust Using this environmental data, historians and complexity scientists constructed a feedback model of population, silver paid as tribute to rulers, and fort-building. As fields expanded, tributes rose; as tributes rose, chiefs could hire more labour to clear more forest and build forts. The model reproduces the startling build-out of ramparts at Poznań, Giecz and Gniezno around 990. It also predicts collapse once the silver stopped flowing. Pollen data indeed show the woodlands recovered to some extent after 1070, while archaeological surveys record abandoned hamlets and shrinking garrisons. The early Piast state rode a resource boom as the Piasts controlled part of the amber and slave trade routes that linked the shores of the Baltic Sea to Rome. The impact of Mieszko's conversion to Christianity on that lucrative trade remains subject to scholarly debate. Reconciling foreigners and locals How do these strands fit together? Evidence of a Scottish man in the Piast paternal line does not necessarily imply a foreign conquest. Dynasties spread by marriages as well as by swords. For example, Świętosława (the sister of the first Piast king, Bolesław the Brave), married the kings of both Denmark and Sweden, and her descendants ruled England for a time. The networks of Europe's nobility were highly mobile. Conversely, the stable genetic profile of ordinary folk suggests that, whoever sat on the ducal bench, most people remained where their grandparents had farmed. The broader research engine None of this work happens in isolation. Poland's National Science Centre has bankrolled a 24-person team across archaeology, palaeoecology and bioinformatics since 2014, generating 16 peer-reviewed papers and a public database of ancient genomes. Conferences at Lednica and Dziekanowice now bring historians and molecular biologists to the same table. The methodological pay-off is clear: Polish labs can now process their own ancient DNA rather than exporting it to Copenhagen or Leipzig. What still puzzles researchers Three questions remain. First, does that British-leaning male line really start with a Pict? The closest known match to the Piasts may change as new burials are sequenced. Second, how many commoners carried the same genetic variant? Spot samples from Kowalewko and Brzeg hint that it was rare among locals, but the data set is small. Third, why did the silver dry up so fast? Numismatists suspect a shift in Viking routes after 1000 AD, yet the matter is far from settled. A balanced verdict Taken together, the evidence paints a nuanced picture. The Piasts were probably not ethnic Slavs in the strict paternal sense, yet they ruled, and soon resembled, an overwhelmingly Slavic realm. Their meteoric rise owed less to outsider brilliance than to the chance alignment of fertile soils, cheap labour, and an export boom in amber and captives. As geneticists conduct more DNA sequencing of remains, such as those of princes in crypts at Kraków's Wawel castle, and palaeo-ecologists push their lakebed pollen samples back to 7th century, we can expect further surprises.
