Survival at the frontier of Holy War: political expansion, crusading, commerce and the medieval colonizing settlement at Biała Gora, North Poland

Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries AD, the Lower Vistula valley represented a permeable and shifting frontier between Pomerelia (eastern Pomerania), which had been incorporated into the Polish Christian state by the end of the tenth century, and the territories of western Prussian tribes, who had resisted attempts at Christianization. Pomeranian colonization eventually began to falter in the latter decades of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, most likely as a result of Prussian incursions, which saw the abandonment of sites across the borderland. Subsequently, the Teutonic Order and its allies led a protracted holy war against the Prussian tribes, which resulted in the conquest of the region and its incorporation into a theocratic state by the end of the thirteenth century. This was accompanied by a second wave of colonization, which resulted in the settlement pattern that is still visible in the landscape of north-central Poland today. However, not all colonies were destroyed or abandoned in between the two phases of colonization. The recently excavated site of Biała Góra, situated on the western side of the Forest of Sztum overlooking the River Nogat, represents a unique example of a transitional settlement that included both Pomeranian and Teutonic Order phases. The aim of this paper is to situate the site within its broader landscape context which can be characterized as a militarized frontier, where, from the later twelfth century and throughout much of the thirteenth century, political and economic expansion was combined with the ideology of Christian holy war and missionary activity. This paper considers how the colonists provisioned and sustained themselves in comparison to other sites within the region, and how Biała Góra may be tentatively linked to a documented but otherwise lost outpost in this volatile borderland

Impact of pork and beef price changes on wild game carcass prices in years 2005-2016

Because of the ever−changing nature of the environment, the limited availability of natural resources, and the increased number of people in the world, modifications in food production can be very important. In order to prevent irreversible damage occurring in the natural environment, food sources that are an alternative to pig meat, beef and poultry from industrial production are being sought. An alternative may be the meat of slow−moving animals. The studies show the impact of livestock (such as pigs and cattle) price changes in comparison to wild game purchase prices. An average correlation was found (r=–0.536) between unit purchase prices of pig livestock and unit purchase prices of wild boar. Regarding the changes in the purchase prices of beef livestock and the purchase prices of the deer carcasses, a weak correlation was observed (r=0.219), while a lack of correlation (r=–0.012) was found between the change in the price of beef and roe−deer. On the basis of the conducted studies, it was stated that in the situation of predicting prices for carcasses of game animals in Poland, information on the apparently substitutive good of farm animals should not be included. The average or low level of correlation, or in case of roe−deer carcass – the lack of correlation between the prices of farmed animals and the prices of wild game, make it possible to conclude that the processes taking place on the analyzed markets in terms of price developments were separate and unrelated