Dębczyn culture

The Dębczyn group (in German also Denziner) is an archæological culture in Pomerania from the 3rd to 6th centuries AD. It was derived from the Wielbark culture with influences from the Elbe region, and succeeded by immigrating of West Slavs, the Pomeranian tribes.

In the second half of the third century, the Dębczyn (Denzin) culture (or group) succeeded the Willenberg culture between the Persante and Drage rivers, and a local, not yet classified culture between the lower Oder and Persante rivers. The adjacent areas to the east were uninhabited by this time. Whether the eastern Dębczyn culture replaced or evolved from the Willenberg culture is not yet known, in the western areas, settlement was continous. The emergence of this group is characterized by an influence of the Vistula region (Willenberg culture), the expansion of the Gustow group, and many paralleles to the Elbe Germanic areas. The dead were buried unburned. The culture existed until the first quarter of the 6th century, when burial of the dead in grave fiels stopped.

The Dębczyn group might comprise the archaeological remnants of Tacitus' Lemovii, probably identical with Widsith's Glommas, who are believed to have been the neighbors of the Rugians, a tribe dwelling at the Pomeranian coast before the migration period. Germanic sagas report a battle on the isle of Hiddensee between king Hetel (Hethin, Heodin of the Glommas) and Rugian king Hagen, following the abdication of Hagen's daughter Hilde by Hetel. Yet, there are also other hypotheses about the location of the Lemovii, and that their identification as Glommas, though probable, is not certain.