This article focuses on the taphonomy of inequality visible in within-church burials from the site of the Church of St. George at Đurđevac-Sošice, a Medieval church in Northern Croatia. Building on concepts of Whitehead’s Poetics model, the three-body model, and landscape archaeology, we examine the role of church architecture in the development and affirmation of social inequality though burial practices. Burial within church spaces was typically limited to those of higher social status (relative to the rest of the community). Here we examine how those practices acted both as leveling acts that promoted group identity at the same time as they highlighted social inequality. This theoretical model is then used to understand more about the use of the Church of St. George at Đurđevac-Sošice as a burial location. The Church of St. George was used as a place of worship from twelfth until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and as a place of burial (as far as the current research has shown) between the twelfth and first half of the sixteenth century. During excavations in 2017–2019, 243 graves were identified, many of which were disturbed or incomplete due to subsequent burial activity during the use of the church as a burial location. These disturbances resulted in a large amount of comingled remains from within the fill of the recognized graves, as well as from levels which resulted from overlapping of younger burial fills over older ones.

本文重点介绍了在克罗地亚北部中世纪教堂 Đurđevac-Sošice 的圣乔治教堂遗址的教堂内墓葬中可见的不平等现象。基于怀特海的诗学模型、三体模型和景观考古学的概念，我们研究了教堂建筑在通过埋葬习俗发展和肯定社会不平等中的作用。在教堂空间内埋葬通常仅限于社会地位较高的人（相对于社区的其他部分）。在这里，我们研究了这些做法如何既作为促进群体身份的平等行为，又突出了社会不平等。然后，该理论模型用于更多地了解位于 Đurđevac-Sošice 的圣乔治教堂作为埋葬地点的用途。圣乔治教堂从 12 世纪到 19 世纪初被用作礼拜场所，并在 12 世纪和 16 世纪上半叶被用作墓地（就目前的研究表明）。在 2017 年至 2019 年的挖掘过程中，发现了 243 座坟墓，其中许多坟墓由于在教堂用作埋葬地点期间的后续埋葬活动而受到干扰或不完整。这些干扰导致大量混杂的遗骸来自公认的坟墓填充物内部，以及由于年轻的墓葬填充物与旧的墓葬填充物重叠而导致的水平。