Other
Trial Excavations and Supervision of the Construction of the D-2 National Road Route-Našice Bypass
Marko Dizdar
orcid.org/0000-0003-3964-9002
; Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Due to the construction of part of the D-2 national road-Našice bypass (Osijek-Baranja County), trial excavations and archaeological supervision of the route were conducted. The 4.1-km-long bypass route leaves the D-515 beneath the northernmost slopes of Mount Krndija, passing along the north-eastern edge of the suburb of Markovac Našički to connect with the D-53 leading towards Donji Miholjac (Fig. 1). The bypass route passes through a lowland area through which several streams run. The largest of them is Našička Rijeka, along which there are mild elevations on which all the archaeological sites are located.
In a field survey of part of the Našice bypass route in 2003 (Minichreiter, Marković 2004: 58–59), three sites were found in the planned section (AS 1 Markovac Našički-Male Livadke, AS 2 Markovac Našički-Orašje and AS 3 Markovac Našički-Stara Branjevina). Trial excavations revealed four new, previously unknown sites (Fig. 1). On a mild elevation (Fig. 3), shards of prehistoric pottery were collected that suggested the existence of AS 2a Markovac Našički-Orašje 2. In trial-trenching, archaeological structures with pottery finds were identified, which suggested the marginal part of an Aeneolithic, i.e. Lasinja culture, settlement. Another prehistoric settlement, AS 4 Velimirovac-Arenda 1, was found on a mild elevation located north of the Našička Rijeka. On the field’s surface, pottery and stone artefacts were collected, while in the trial-trenches, archaeological structures with ceramic vessel shards and house daub were identified. The filling of a large pit-dwelling was documented, beside which there were also smaller oval-shaped pits (Fig. 4). The collected finds suggest the existence of a Starčevo culture settlement, traces of which were also found in a field survey of the Donji Miholjac-Slobodnica main natural gas pipeline route (Dizdar, Ložnjak Dizdar 2009: 136–138, site no. 17 Arenda). In the aforementioned field survey, finds were unearthed from the Late Bronze Age and the Middle Ages in the western part of the field (Dizdar, Ložnjak Dizdar 2009: 136). In a trial-trench on the Našice bypass route, between Neolithic and Late Bronze Age structures, a part of the surface with no finds was identified, therefore the western part was separated as a special site: Velimirovac-Arenda 2. In a trial-trench at this site, numerous archaeological structures with pottery finds from the Late Bronze Age, i.e. the Virovitica group, were identified. In a trial-trench some hundred metres further west, another previously unknown prehistoric site, AS 6 Velimirovac- Branjevina, was found.
After the trial excavations, the total length of the archaeological sites was increased from 735 m to 1,875 m. Future rescue excavations of seven sites located on the bypass route will help us solve the problem of populating the Našice area in the Neolithic, Copper Age, Late Bronze Age, Late Iron Age and Middle Ages.
Keywords
trial excavations; Našice; prehistory; Middle Ages; settlements; infrastructure
Hrčak ID:
89777
URI
Publication date:
25.10.2011.
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