ABSOLUTE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BARROW IN KOLOSY (Chronologia absolutna kurhanu w Kolosach)

The Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory has made 2 radiocarbon dating measurements for graves 2 and 3 from Barrow I in Kolosy, district of Kazimierza Wielka. Human bones from these graves were selected for the radiocarbon dating as 'materials representing the Corded Ware culture' (CWC). However, the measurements placed the bones in the Funnel Beaker culture (FBC) instead. The new dating has provided a pretext for reconsidering the stratigraphical situation of the burial mound in Kolosy. There are also other reasons to link Graves 2 and 3 to the FBC and to assume that the mound was built as early as in the 4th millennium BC. The most important of these reasons are the constructions of graves and the position of the skeletons. If Graves 2 and 3 are correctly linked to the FBC, no CWC feature has been discovered under the mound in Kolosy. The presence of a FBC barrow in Kolosy may be regarded as probable. Nevertheless, another possibility should be taken into account: radiocarbon dated Graves 2 and 3 could have been a part (or perhaps the 'whole') of a flat FBC cemetery that was accidentally covered later with a CWC embankment. The central barrow grave would then have been entirely destroyed by the modern digs. Such a development, though less convincing, is also possible.