The second volume on the Iron Age settlement at Most na Soči evaluates from various aspects the structures and small finds that has been presented in the first book.
Most na Soči ranks among the most prominent prehistoric sites in Europe. It is mainly known for the extensive cemetery from the Early Iron Age, which was first investigated in the late 19th century ...and revealed over 6000 burials. The rapid growth of the modern village of Most na Soči again led to large-scale archaeological excavations in the 1970s. These were conducted in the span of eleven years and unearthed one of the most significant Iron Age settlements in Slovenia and the wider south-eastern Alpine region.
This popular-science publication describes the pile-dwellings of the Ljubljansko barje, which were created in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. However, when the lake was completely overgrown ...with swamps and marshes (at the latest around the middle of the 2nd millennium), the construction of such settlements stopped. From then on, new settlements were built on the outskirts of the lake banks, where the fields were previously. There they also farmed livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. They were accompanied by dogs. Hunting and fishing were also important economic activities~they harvested fruits in the forests. They made pottery vessels. Findings of copper and metallurgical articles, however, prove that at least since the 4th millennium BC they were engaged in copper metallurgy. Logboats were used to navigate the lake and in the second half of the 4th millennium even for routes outside the Ljubljansko barje. In short, they were very resourceful and were able to adapt well to the environment in which they lived.Only in Slovenian
The monograph presents the settlement of north-eastern Slovenia during the Late Bronze Age. It is divided into three parts. The first brings an analysis of the settlements, cemeteries, hoards and ...stray finds, i.e. all the structures that define the cultural landscape. The analysis shows a relatively dense habitation in the Early Bronze Age, followed first by a lull and then a peak, with the settlement network becoming densest towards the end of the second millennium BC.This is followed by a discussion on the typochronology of the pottery from the Bronze Age settlements at Ormož, Ptuj and Gornja Radgona.The last chapter of the first part offers an overview of the Late Bronze Age in north-eastern Slovenia and presents the living conditions, the process of forming centres, the economic basis as well as the contacts with distant places.The second and third parts of the book present the field investigations and finds from Grajski grič in Ptuj and Grajski hrib in Gornja Radgona. These two important hilltop settlements represented, together with the fortified settlement at Ormož, important Bronze Age centres in the settlement network of north-eastern Slovenia.
The finds and preserved grave groups from its tumulus cemeteries, which are kept in several museums in different countries (Narodni muzej Slovenije, Ljubljana~Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien~Peabody ...Museum of Harvard University in Cambridge, USA), give a good insight into the cultural and social processes of the time. Together with notes on the circumstances of find and contents of graves, they represent a valuable source for the study of social structure and differentiation, as well as cultural identity.
Ormož ranks among the most important archaeological sites in Slovenia. The fortified settlement from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age extended over the area where the town stands today. It ...developed on a high-lying terrace on the left bank of the river Drava, which forms a broad bend right at the foothills. This site was intentionally selected, since towards the river it was protected by a steep slope, and to the east and west by relatively deep natural dykes. In the present monograph a survey is given of the results of the excavations which were carried out in Ormož during the period from 1974 to 1981.
The following results from excavations carried out in 1987 at Sermin near Koper are presented in the monograph: the extent of the settlement, the stratigraphy, the remains of Bronze Age houses and ...Roman levelling of the ground. Metal, glass and bone material finds, as well as Prehistoric and Roman pottery, are analyzed in detail. It was determined that settlement was of long duration, probably continuous from the Middle Neolithic to the middle of the 1st century AD. Due tot ehir abundance, material finds dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Ages as well as the Early Roman period are more striking. The settlement at Sermin was constantly situated in the middle of trade and cultural currents between Italy, the Balkans and the Mediterranean region. The material finds are also an indication of the significance of the settlement during the period of the earliest Romanization. Attesting the plentiful production of wine and amphorae along the Adriatic coast of Italy already from the middle of the 2nd centruy BC, the archaeological chapters are complemented by chemical and mineralogical research on the ceramics of the amphorae. The paleo-vegetational conditions in the coastal region of Koper are presented at the end. The development of settlement in the region of northwestern Istria from Prehistoric times to the Early Middle Ages is described in the supplement.
The Ljubljanica River with its tributaries has witnessed no less than a quarter of a century of organised underwater research. The latter has shown that the archaeological complex there ...unquestionably ranks among the most interesting ones in Slovenia with the finds from the beds and banks of the waterways speaking of nearby settlements, cemeteries, forts, control points or places of cult.These, together with various types of river vessels and other traces of water exploitation, improve in many ways the knowledge of the phenomenon that is the Ljubljansko barje as a cultural landscape as well as its specific dynamics closely related to the natural changes in the environment from the early periods of the prehistory onwards.