Ostalo
Field Surveys of the Territories of the Municipalities of Ilok, Lovas and Tovarnik in 2008
Marko Dizdar
orcid.org/0000-0003-3964-9002
; Institut za arheologiju, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Daria Ložnjak Dizdar
orcid.org/0000-0002-5769-2269
; Institut za arheologiju, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
During the spring and autumn of 2008, a field surveys of the territories of the municipalities of Ilok, Lovas and Tovarnik was conducted with the aim of uncovering new and documenting known archaeological sites in the area of Upper (western) Syrmia. Since the major part of the margin of the high, right bank of the Danube River in the Ilok Municipality was surveyed in the fall of 2003, new field surveys are primarily directed at the remaining part of the margin of the loess plateau, and the area in the hinterland of the Danube bank, up to the southern slopes of the Vukovar plateau near Tovarnik. In the field surveys, a number of new archaeological sites from all periods were registered, out of which some stand out for the quantity and type of finds. A total of 36 archaeological sites were documented, of which most were thus far unknown. The documented large number of archaeological sites is not at all surprising, if we consider the outstanding location of the western slopes of Fruška gora above the Danube and the southern slopes of the Vukovar plateau above the alluvial plain. An important European communication route passed along the margin of the high, right bank of the Danube, along which cultural influences streamed for millennia, connecting the Carpathian Basin in all directions. The border of the Roman Empire passed at the same point, with which a number of Roman sites between Ilok and Bapska are associated. Some of the oldest archaeological sites, dating from prehistoric times and belonging to the Starčevo and Sopot cultures, were registered in this region, while in the Bronze and Iron Ages cultural groups of various origins intermingled here, culminating in the Early Iron Age in numerous direct contacts between the Dalj and the Bosut groups at sites from Vukovar to Ilok. Numerous Late Iron Age sites testify the dense Scordisc population in Upper Syrmia. During Roman domination, Rome’s auxiliary troopers were stationed in the fortress of Cuccium. Near the fortress, a civilian settlement developed, to which smaller settlements and villas situated deeper in the hinterland or along the so-called Limes Road gravitated. The number of collected surface finds suggests dense population during Early and High Middle Ages. As a result of high-quality arable land, the densest population was documented in the Late Middle Ages with numerous, well-connected settlements. The reasons for conducting the field surveys of the municipalities of Ilok, Lovas and Tovarnik were fully justified by the results, with a large number of archaeological sites from all periods documented. Although the results of the field surveys rely upon collected surface finds, most sites can be chronologically and culturally defined. In view of the increasingly intense cultivation of permanent crops, and due to the development of infrastructure, this surveys needs to be continued in order to produce a map of archaeological sites in Upper Syrmia, an area with the largest number of sites in Northern Croatia. Also, since the land is subject to intensive agriculture, individual sites need to be test excavate as soon as possible in order to examine hypotheses regarding chronological and stratigraphic observations, which now rest on the collected surface finds.
Ključne riječi
field survey; Upper Syrmia; Prehistory; Classical Antiquity; Limes; Middle Ages; settlements; cemeteries
Hrčak ID:
50453
URI
Datum izdavanja:
21.12.2009.
Posjeta: 2.372 *