Preliminary communication
Results of Rescue Archeological Excavation on Prehistorical and Early Middle Ages Settlement Virovitica − Đota 2005
Daria Ložnjak Dizdar
Abstract
In archaeological rescue excavations at the Virovitica−Đota site, the northern periphery of a settlement from the Early Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages was unearthed. After the archaeological rescue excavations, analysis of the ceramic artefacts and 14C analyses, the conclusion can be made that the elevated terrace at the Virovitica−Đota site was populated as early as the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, and than on account of abundant ceramic objects from SU 3 more intensely in the Late Bronze Age.
The excavated prehistoric constructions contained only sporadic ceramic finds, suggesting that they were filled naturally, i.e. that they were not used as refuse pits. Radiocarbon analyses have shown that they belonged to an Early Iron Age settlement, from which only sporadic ceramic finds were unearthed. Pits from the Early Middle Ages were abundant in pottery artefacts, and 14C analyses overlap with the typological and chronological analysis dating the settlement to the tenth/eleventh centuries. Archaeological finds are represented by pottery, lithic finds and several fragments of iron objects. Most of the pottery can be dated to the Late Bronze Age, i.e. the beginning of the Urnfield culture, and it originates from the alluvial layer, settled by washing out the highest part of the settlement, which was not excavated.
The Late Bronze Age settlement in Virovitica at the Đota site fits into the network of simultaneous settlements positioned on elevated terraces in the Drava valley in the zone from Koprivnica to Slatina, as past field surveys and trial excavation have shown (Sekelj Ivančan, Belaj 1998; Tkalčec, Dizdar, Kovačević 2003; Ložnjak Dizdar 2005, 29-30). The excavated settlement infrastructure testifies to the economy and life-style of the population of the Early Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages, whereas pottery suggests the existence of a Late Bronze Age settlement. The Virovitica−Đota site fits into the network of Late Bronze Age and Early Middle Ages settlements in Podravina, whereas the identified Early Iron Age settlement completes the picture of human habitation in northern Croatia in the Iron Age.
Keywords
Virovitica - Đota; settlement; pottery; Late Bronze Age; Early Iron Age; Early Middle Ages
Hrčak ID:
9172
URI
Publication date:
11.11.2006.
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