@misc{Piontek_Janusz_Origin_2006, author={Piontek, Janusz}, volume={44}, copyright={Rights Reserved - Free Access}, address={Warszawa}, journal={Archaeologia Polona}, howpublished={online}, year={2006}, publisher={Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences}, language={eng}, abstract={This article discusses reasons for the lack of convincing data testifying to biological possibili-ties of a "rapid expansion" of Slavic populations and a model which would describe "the mecha-nism governing the reproductiveness" of these populations in archaeological literature. Also the importance of the study of skeletal materials as the basis for the palaeodemographic research aiming at determining the biological condition and dynamics of the Slavic population is stressed. Broad strategies for palaeodemographic research are suggested. The author presents the grounds for attempts to use the adaptive relationship to construct theoretical models of the ethnogenesis process, in order to increase the validity of the adopted adaptation strategy. This helps to expose the naiveté of archaeologists who believe that using research procedures based on positivistically oriented archaeology will make it possible to elucidate the process of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs.The author suggests adopting to begin with the thesis that biocultural systems with a certain frequency of biological, social and cultural traits and specific interrelations among them appeared and developed in given conditions of the environment (biotic and abiotic). The persistence of these systems on a given level of adaptation is possible owing to the adopted, i.e., socially and culturally generated concept of shaping the human — environment relations, a concept that ensures the satisfaction of biological, as well as social and cultural needs. The article argues that the issue of the biological condition and dynamics of the Slavic population integrates different partners of anthropologists like, among others, geneticists and molecular biologists, cultural anthropologists and pre-historians using other than typological approaches. A variety of data (linguistic, biological, i.e., morphological differentiations and the genetic structures, etc.) is taken into consideration in ways that increase the validity of our knowledge about complex properties of a human population}, type={Text}, title={Origin of the Slavs as a pretext for discussion}, keywords={ethnogenesis of the Slavs, biological dynamics of population, palaeodemography, skeletal materials}, }