… Archaeologica Papers of the Department of …, 2004
ThePoegaValleyisadistinctgeographicunitinthecentral portion of northern Croatia. Its strategic l... more ThePoegaValleyisadistinctgeographicunitinthecentral portion of northern Croatia. Its strategic location between the vital courses of the Sava and Drava rivers accords this region with exceptional importance as a communications zone, which is confirmed by the numerous ...
IRON AGE FEMALE IDENTITIES IN THE SOUTHERN CARPATHIAN BASIN, 2022
This book is a result of the research project of the Croatian Science Foundation, Iron Age Female... more This book is a result of the research project of the Croatian Science Foundation, Iron Age Female Identities in the Southern Carpathian Basin (IP -06-2016-1749), undertaken at the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb in the period from 2017 to 2021. The project brought together researchers from the Institute of Archaeology, the Institute for Anthropological Research, the Department of Archaeology at the University of Zagreb, the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich, the Institute of Archaeology and Art History in Cluj-Napoca, the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science, the Archaeological Institute in Belgrade, the Archaeological Department at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and numerous outside participants from the Archaeological Museum in Osijek, the Vinkovci City Museum, the Vukovar City Museum, and the Slavonski Brod Regional Museum.
Project research tried to answer questions about how the female body was perceived, what influenced female visual identity in the Iron Age, what was the role of women in the Iron Age society, and whether the funerary customs and jewellery reflect the status of the buried women. The exploration of the Danube area cemeteries of Batina and Sotin led to interdisciplinary research of cremated anthropological remains and archaeological analyses and interpretations that resulted in papers on the material traces for the reconstruction of the costume, status and roles of women in these communities and how different female identities were created by costume and jewellery. An important research question was whether a significant change in personal social identities can be observed in costume and jewellery, and how we can recognize the relationships between the body and different costume items by studying the items.
Interdisciplinary Research into Iron Metallurgy along the Drava River in Croatia, 2021
Several years of excavations at the site of Virje–Volarski Breg/Sušine uncovered the remains of a... more Several years of excavations at the site of Virje–Volarski Breg/Sušine uncovered the remains of a settlement from the Late Bronze and Late Iron Ages. The finds of a bronze pin and potsherds from the Late Bronze Age enabled the dating of the settlement to the early and late phases of the Urnfield culture, with the settlement at Volarski Breg being older than the one at Sušine. The excavations revealed parts of La Tène settlement infrastructure, which indicated that it was a prominent lowland settlement from the Middle and Late La Tène. They included the exceptional discovery of a pit with the remains of a loom. Both for the organization of the La Tène culture settlement and for its pottery finds, there are parallels in the known settlements from the middle Drava valley and the neighbouring areas of north-eastern Slovenia and south-western Hungary. These settlements are considered to have a rural character and to be the result of the life needs of small agricultural communities integr...
Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to wh... more Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.
PROCEEDINGS FROM THE 7TH SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE METHODOLOGY AND ARCHAEOMETRY, ZAGREB, 2019
Between 2014 and 2019 several geophysical prospection campaigns on archaeological sites in Northe... more Between 2014 and 2019 several geophysical prospection campaigns on archaeological sites in Northern and Eastern Croatia were realised. Survey layout, data and interpretation from the Hallstatt site of Jalžabet (Varaždin), from the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age site of Dolina (Nova Gradiška), and several prehistoric and Roman sites in Slavonia are presented and discussed in this paper. All data sets can be considered as incomplete since the investigations faced several serious constraints. Firstly, intensive agricultural use and small property sizes result in limited accessibility of the areas to be investigated. On no account a complete coverage of the site’s cores was possible. Secondly, the limited budgets also implicate a methodological narrowness. Do these resulting incomplete data sets contribute to increase our archaeological knowledge? From a purely scientific point of view, a total coverage not only of the “site” but also of the surrounding “landscape” is self-evident. In fact, archaeological fieldwork and research in today’s “austerity societies” remain mere wishful thinking. Yet, couldn’t we consider this kind of prospection campaigns as a full-value tool in archaeological research? Due to the wide availability of multi-channel equipment, data collection has become a standard procedure during the last 15 years. By contrast, the archaeological interpretation of the data is a matter of permanent epistemological development. The combination of the mentioned incomplete data sets and poor documentation of archaeological information on historical excavations and surveys present a challenge for both archaeologists and geophysicists. The presented examples prove that substantial archaeological information can be gathered even from limited data sets. Taking into account geological, geomorphological and archaeological information, prevents us from both, merely describing geophysical data as well as from over-interpreting. It is self-evident that all information is assembled and presented in GIS, so that continuous reworking of the data is possible for all involved parties.
Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology Volume 1, Spheres of Interaction Contacts and Relationships between the Balkans and Adjacent Regions in the Late Bronze / Iron Age (13th–5th Centuries BCE) (eds. Mario Gavranović, Daniela Heilmann, Aleksandar Kapuran and Marek Verčík) , 2020
The paper presents one of the storage pits from the first phase of the Bosut group settlement in ... more The paper presents one of the storage pits from the first phase of the Bosut group settlement in Ilok that stood at the site of the Upper Town. The area of the Upper Town of Ilok was continuously inhabited throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, with the most intense traces of habitation dating from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The eight-year rescue excavations of the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb explored the preserved buried structures from all the development stages of the Bosut group. The example of the storage pit with its inventory testifies to possible different uses of such pits, which have often been found in other Bosut group settlements in Syrmia, southern Bačka, and Banat.
Prilozi Instituta za arheologiju u Zagrebu vol. 36, 2019
Eastern Slavonia, western Bačka, and western Syrmia in the Early Iron Age were inhabited by commu... more Eastern Slavonia, western Bačka, and western Syrmia in the Early Iron Age were inhabited by communities associated with the material culture of the Dalj group. The continuity of life and burials on the same sites can be followed from the Late Bronze Age. Recent excavations at Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age cemeteries in Sotin have identified 119 graves. These are cremation graves; in most of them, the cremated remains of the dead and the remains of costume and personal items were placed in urns and covered with a bowl serving as lid. The Early Iron Age graves included ceramic sets of pots, cups, kantharoi, and bowls, containing food and drinks as departing gifts within the funerary rite. Interdisciplinary analyses of contexts, finds, and samples, have led to more detailed interpretations of funerary rites, identities, and the status of the dead, by analysing specific graves. The definite context linking the pottery finds and the jewellery has resulted from the detailed dating of the inventory in the Danube Basin from the Early Iron Age, considered within the network of communications and influences that can be seen from the objects and funerary rites.
HALLSTATT UND ITALIEN, FESTSCHRIFT FÜR MARKUS EGG, MONOGRAPHIEN DES RGZM Band 154, H. Baitinger-M. Schönfelder (eds.), 2019
Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the... more Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of many exceptional finds, now stored in the collections of several European museums, which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes and which helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj Group. Since 2010 new excavations rekindled the interest for this extraordinary site. Their results will significantly contribute to the understanding of the complex processes that took place in the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 2nd millennium and in the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC.
Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the... more Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of many exceptional finds, now stored in the collections of several European museums, which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes and which helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj Group. A systematic field survey was done to determine the location of the Dalj Group cemetery in Batina. Its results indicated that the cemetery could have been located in Sredno, a site south of the contemporary settlement on Gradac. This was followed by archaeological excavations in Sredno, which revealed many cremation graves of the Dalj Group from the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. The graves contained ceramic, metal and glass finds, confirming the earlier hypotheses about the great significance of Batina as an important southern Pannonian centre from the end of the 2nd millennium BC and the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC, which stood on an important communication line along the Danube.
The Late Urnfield Culture between the Eastern Alps and the Danube. Proceedings of the international conference in Zagreb, November 7-8, 2013, Zbornik Instituta za arheologiju /Serta Instituti Archaeologici 9 (eds. D. Ložnjak Dizdar, M. Dizdar), 2017
The Urnfield culture in northern Croatia was defined in the works of K. Vinski-Gasparini on the b... more The Urnfield culture in northern Croatia was defined in the works of K. Vinski-Gasparini on the basis of known hoards and the few researched graves, especially those from the Zagreb group, dated to phases II and III. The Slatina cemetery, researched in 2009 during the rescue excavations on the planned route of a bypass, was dated to phase Ha A2 on the basis of pottery and metal finds, according to the chronology of H. Müller-Karpe and K. Vinski-Gasparini. The rich material heritage found in the researched graves calls for a reevaluation of phase Ha A, since the location of the Slatina cemetery – in the valley of the River Drava – has exceptional importance when considering the relations between the earlier and the latter phases of the Urnfield culture in the Drava valley. Moreover, the identified parallels with the finds from the closed funerary complexes in Slatina testify to the relations between the Drava valley and the Carpathian Basin during the phase Ha A2.
The 11th cent. BC in the southern Carpathian Basin was marked by the Urnfield culture. The typolo... more The 11th cent. BC in the southern Carpathian Basin was marked by the Urnfield culture. The typological and chronological analysis of the ceramic and metal finds collected in the Late Bronze Age cemetery in Slatina, excavated in 2009, date the cemetery to the Ha A2 phase according to the periodization of H. Müller-Karpe. Absolute radiocarbon dating from the Slatina graves suggests the period of the 11th cent. BC. The analyzed 38 graves give the opportunity to reconstruct the burial practices on the central Drava, while the geographic location of Slatina makes it possible to relate the observed burial practices with the wider communication network of the researched contemporary cemeteries in the wider area of the southern Carpathian Basin.
Changes in mortuary practices at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the southern Middle Danube reg... more Changes in mortuary practices at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the southern Middle Danube region are evident in several grave characteristics. The most obvious is an increased number of vessels in ceramic sets placed within the grave. Even though this period is the time of traditional Urnfield cemeteries, presence of inhumation graves can also be noticed. Two investigated cemeteries that belong to this period are Batina and Sotin. Graves from those two cemeteries will be analysed combining archaeological and anthropological data in order to investigate changes in mortuary practices. We hope that this analysis will enable us to answer some questions, such as: does the combination of grave goods match the sex or age of the deceased or does the choice of grave goods depend on the possibilities of a community that buried the deceased. Possible regularities in the mortuary practices of the Dalj group – common rituals (encompassing the meat/parts of animals, farewell gifts) and local variations in certain cemeteries will be tested by comparing data from several other cemeteries. Also, we shall also try to answer the question – who wore hair jewellery, the most common body ornaments found in graves, combining archaeological and anthropological methods. Changes in mortuary practices of communities settled in the southern Middle Danube region at the end of the Bronze Age were not significant, but they are noticeable. It is interesting to investigate how those communities located on the crossroads between the east and west of the Carpathian Basin accepted the new burial customs/practice.
In view of the small number of sites in the Drava Basin in Croatia and Hungary, as well as the la... more In view of the small number of sites in the Drava Basin in Croatia and Hungary, as well as the large number of Hallstatt sites discovered in the recent salvage investigations in the Slovenian part of the Drava Basin, as well as in the area of Varaždin, it is probable that the role Podravina had played in the Ha B period as an important east-west communication route did not diminish afterwards. The two excavated graves from Slatina complemented our hitherto modest understanding of the Early Iron Age in the central Podravina region. These are the first investigated graves from that period, with a highly intertesting burial rite in flat graves with still strongly preserved Urnfield tradition. The burial rite, as well as the forms and decorations on vessels bear testimony to the peripheral position of Slatina in the eastern Hallstatt circle. On the one side, urn no. 1, spindle-whorls and the knife point to strong western influence from the area of the eastern Hallstatt circle, while flat graves in urns, the pot, decorations on urn, show eastern influence from the area of the Dalj group. These graves once again underlined the importance of the communication via the Drava plain, connecting the southeastern Alpine area with the Danubian Basin. The mentioned connection is corroborated precisely by flat graves in urns, characteristic for the Dalj group in the east, but recent investigations (Wildon, Nova Tabla) indicate that we should expect to find them also more to the west in the core territory of the southeastern Alpine Hallstatt circle.
The Drava river, just as it had incised its bed across the Pannonian Plain, so it has from times ... more The Drava river, just as it had incised its bed across the Pannonian Plain, so it has from times immemorial traced the routes that connected the south-eastern Alpine circle with the Danubian basin. Podravina was a region where various ideas and knowledge were exchanged, which is exceptionally well documented by the material culture in the younger phase of the Late Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age. Two graves discovered in Belišće, west of Osijek, complement our presently modest knowledge about the Lower Podravina region in that period.
The Beginning of the Late Bronze Age between the Eastern Alps and the Danube. Proceedings of the International conference in Osijek, Serta Instituti archaeologici 1, D. Ložnjak Dizdar, M. Dizdar (eds.), Zagreb, 2014
The territory of northern Croatia is delineated by the rivers Drava, Danube and Sava, whose basin... more The territory of northern Croatia is delineated by the rivers Drava, Danube and Sava, whose basins played an important role in the
communication system of the Late Bronze Age. The influence of communications on the everyday life and identity of Late Bronze Age
communities that inhabited this area is reflected in the distribution patterns of certain goods, but also in the ways in which people built
houses and buried their dead, as well as in the new phenomenon of hoarding, with the greatest concentration in central Posavina.
… Archaeologica Papers of the Department of …, 2004
ThePoegaValleyisadistinctgeographicunitinthecentral portion of northern Croatia. Its strategic l... more ThePoegaValleyisadistinctgeographicunitinthecentral portion of northern Croatia. Its strategic location between the vital courses of the Sava and Drava rivers accords this region with exceptional importance as a communications zone, which is confirmed by the numerous ...
IRON AGE FEMALE IDENTITIES IN THE SOUTHERN CARPATHIAN BASIN, 2022
This book is a result of the research project of the Croatian Science Foundation, Iron Age Female... more This book is a result of the research project of the Croatian Science Foundation, Iron Age Female Identities in the Southern Carpathian Basin (IP -06-2016-1749), undertaken at the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb in the period from 2017 to 2021. The project brought together researchers from the Institute of Archaeology, the Institute for Anthropological Research, the Department of Archaeology at the University of Zagreb, the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich, the Institute of Archaeology and Art History in Cluj-Napoca, the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science, the Archaeological Institute in Belgrade, the Archaeological Department at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and numerous outside participants from the Archaeological Museum in Osijek, the Vinkovci City Museum, the Vukovar City Museum, and the Slavonski Brod Regional Museum.
Project research tried to answer questions about how the female body was perceived, what influenced female visual identity in the Iron Age, what was the role of women in the Iron Age society, and whether the funerary customs and jewellery reflect the status of the buried women. The exploration of the Danube area cemeteries of Batina and Sotin led to interdisciplinary research of cremated anthropological remains and archaeological analyses and interpretations that resulted in papers on the material traces for the reconstruction of the costume, status and roles of women in these communities and how different female identities were created by costume and jewellery. An important research question was whether a significant change in personal social identities can be observed in costume and jewellery, and how we can recognize the relationships between the body and different costume items by studying the items.
Interdisciplinary Research into Iron Metallurgy along the Drava River in Croatia, 2021
Several years of excavations at the site of Virje–Volarski Breg/Sušine uncovered the remains of a... more Several years of excavations at the site of Virje–Volarski Breg/Sušine uncovered the remains of a settlement from the Late Bronze and Late Iron Ages. The finds of a bronze pin and potsherds from the Late Bronze Age enabled the dating of the settlement to the early and late phases of the Urnfield culture, with the settlement at Volarski Breg being older than the one at Sušine. The excavations revealed parts of La Tène settlement infrastructure, which indicated that it was a prominent lowland settlement from the Middle and Late La Tène. They included the exceptional discovery of a pit with the remains of a loom. Both for the organization of the La Tène culture settlement and for its pottery finds, there are parallels in the known settlements from the middle Drava valley and the neighbouring areas of north-eastern Slovenia and south-western Hungary. These settlements are considered to have a rural character and to be the result of the life needs of small agricultural communities integr...
Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to wh... more Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.
PROCEEDINGS FROM THE 7TH SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE METHODOLOGY AND ARCHAEOMETRY, ZAGREB, 2019
Between 2014 and 2019 several geophysical prospection campaigns on archaeological sites in Northe... more Between 2014 and 2019 several geophysical prospection campaigns on archaeological sites in Northern and Eastern Croatia were realised. Survey layout, data and interpretation from the Hallstatt site of Jalžabet (Varaždin), from the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age site of Dolina (Nova Gradiška), and several prehistoric and Roman sites in Slavonia are presented and discussed in this paper. All data sets can be considered as incomplete since the investigations faced several serious constraints. Firstly, intensive agricultural use and small property sizes result in limited accessibility of the areas to be investigated. On no account a complete coverage of the site’s cores was possible. Secondly, the limited budgets also implicate a methodological narrowness. Do these resulting incomplete data sets contribute to increase our archaeological knowledge? From a purely scientific point of view, a total coverage not only of the “site” but also of the surrounding “landscape” is self-evident. In fact, archaeological fieldwork and research in today’s “austerity societies” remain mere wishful thinking. Yet, couldn’t we consider this kind of prospection campaigns as a full-value tool in archaeological research? Due to the wide availability of multi-channel equipment, data collection has become a standard procedure during the last 15 years. By contrast, the archaeological interpretation of the data is a matter of permanent epistemological development. The combination of the mentioned incomplete data sets and poor documentation of archaeological information on historical excavations and surveys present a challenge for both archaeologists and geophysicists. The presented examples prove that substantial archaeological information can be gathered even from limited data sets. Taking into account geological, geomorphological and archaeological information, prevents us from both, merely describing geophysical data as well as from over-interpreting. It is self-evident that all information is assembled and presented in GIS, so that continuous reworking of the data is possible for all involved parties.
Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology Volume 1, Spheres of Interaction Contacts and Relationships between the Balkans and Adjacent Regions in the Late Bronze / Iron Age (13th–5th Centuries BCE) (eds. Mario Gavranović, Daniela Heilmann, Aleksandar Kapuran and Marek Verčík) , 2020
The paper presents one of the storage pits from the first phase of the Bosut group settlement in ... more The paper presents one of the storage pits from the first phase of the Bosut group settlement in Ilok that stood at the site of the Upper Town. The area of the Upper Town of Ilok was continuously inhabited throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, with the most intense traces of habitation dating from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The eight-year rescue excavations of the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb explored the preserved buried structures from all the development stages of the Bosut group. The example of the storage pit with its inventory testifies to possible different uses of such pits, which have often been found in other Bosut group settlements in Syrmia, southern Bačka, and Banat.
Prilozi Instituta za arheologiju u Zagrebu vol. 36, 2019
Eastern Slavonia, western Bačka, and western Syrmia in the Early Iron Age were inhabited by commu... more Eastern Slavonia, western Bačka, and western Syrmia in the Early Iron Age were inhabited by communities associated with the material culture of the Dalj group. The continuity of life and burials on the same sites can be followed from the Late Bronze Age. Recent excavations at Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age cemeteries in Sotin have identified 119 graves. These are cremation graves; in most of them, the cremated remains of the dead and the remains of costume and personal items were placed in urns and covered with a bowl serving as lid. The Early Iron Age graves included ceramic sets of pots, cups, kantharoi, and bowls, containing food and drinks as departing gifts within the funerary rite. Interdisciplinary analyses of contexts, finds, and samples, have led to more detailed interpretations of funerary rites, identities, and the status of the dead, by analysing specific graves. The definite context linking the pottery finds and the jewellery has resulted from the detailed dating of the inventory in the Danube Basin from the Early Iron Age, considered within the network of communications and influences that can be seen from the objects and funerary rites.
HALLSTATT UND ITALIEN, FESTSCHRIFT FÜR MARKUS EGG, MONOGRAPHIEN DES RGZM Band 154, H. Baitinger-M. Schönfelder (eds.), 2019
Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the... more Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of many exceptional finds, now stored in the collections of several European museums, which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes and which helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj Group. Since 2010 new excavations rekindled the interest for this extraordinary site. Their results will significantly contribute to the understanding of the complex processes that took place in the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 2nd millennium and in the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC.
Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the... more Batina (Kiskőszeg) is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of many exceptional finds, now stored in the collections of several European museums, which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes and which helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj Group. A systematic field survey was done to determine the location of the Dalj Group cemetery in Batina. Its results indicated that the cemetery could have been located in Sredno, a site south of the contemporary settlement on Gradac. This was followed by archaeological excavations in Sredno, which revealed many cremation graves of the Dalj Group from the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. The graves contained ceramic, metal and glass finds, confirming the earlier hypotheses about the great significance of Batina as an important southern Pannonian centre from the end of the 2nd millennium BC and the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC, which stood on an important communication line along the Danube.
The Late Urnfield Culture between the Eastern Alps and the Danube. Proceedings of the international conference in Zagreb, November 7-8, 2013, Zbornik Instituta za arheologiju /Serta Instituti Archaeologici 9 (eds. D. Ložnjak Dizdar, M. Dizdar), 2017
The Urnfield culture in northern Croatia was defined in the works of K. Vinski-Gasparini on the b... more The Urnfield culture in northern Croatia was defined in the works of K. Vinski-Gasparini on the basis of known hoards and the few researched graves, especially those from the Zagreb group, dated to phases II and III. The Slatina cemetery, researched in 2009 during the rescue excavations on the planned route of a bypass, was dated to phase Ha A2 on the basis of pottery and metal finds, according to the chronology of H. Müller-Karpe and K. Vinski-Gasparini. The rich material heritage found in the researched graves calls for a reevaluation of phase Ha A, since the location of the Slatina cemetery – in the valley of the River Drava – has exceptional importance when considering the relations between the earlier and the latter phases of the Urnfield culture in the Drava valley. Moreover, the identified parallels with the finds from the closed funerary complexes in Slatina testify to the relations between the Drava valley and the Carpathian Basin during the phase Ha A2.
The 11th cent. BC in the southern Carpathian Basin was marked by the Urnfield culture. The typolo... more The 11th cent. BC in the southern Carpathian Basin was marked by the Urnfield culture. The typological and chronological analysis of the ceramic and metal finds collected in the Late Bronze Age cemetery in Slatina, excavated in 2009, date the cemetery to the Ha A2 phase according to the periodization of H. Müller-Karpe. Absolute radiocarbon dating from the Slatina graves suggests the period of the 11th cent. BC. The analyzed 38 graves give the opportunity to reconstruct the burial practices on the central Drava, while the geographic location of Slatina makes it possible to relate the observed burial practices with the wider communication network of the researched contemporary cemeteries in the wider area of the southern Carpathian Basin.
Changes in mortuary practices at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the southern Middle Danube reg... more Changes in mortuary practices at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the southern Middle Danube region are evident in several grave characteristics. The most obvious is an increased number of vessels in ceramic sets placed within the grave. Even though this period is the time of traditional Urnfield cemeteries, presence of inhumation graves can also be noticed. Two investigated cemeteries that belong to this period are Batina and Sotin. Graves from those two cemeteries will be analysed combining archaeological and anthropological data in order to investigate changes in mortuary practices. We hope that this analysis will enable us to answer some questions, such as: does the combination of grave goods match the sex or age of the deceased or does the choice of grave goods depend on the possibilities of a community that buried the deceased. Possible regularities in the mortuary practices of the Dalj group – common rituals (encompassing the meat/parts of animals, farewell gifts) and local variations in certain cemeteries will be tested by comparing data from several other cemeteries. Also, we shall also try to answer the question – who wore hair jewellery, the most common body ornaments found in graves, combining archaeological and anthropological methods. Changes in mortuary practices of communities settled in the southern Middle Danube region at the end of the Bronze Age were not significant, but they are noticeable. It is interesting to investigate how those communities located on the crossroads between the east and west of the Carpathian Basin accepted the new burial customs/practice.
In view of the small number of sites in the Drava Basin in Croatia and Hungary, as well as the la... more In view of the small number of sites in the Drava Basin in Croatia and Hungary, as well as the large number of Hallstatt sites discovered in the recent salvage investigations in the Slovenian part of the Drava Basin, as well as in the area of Varaždin, it is probable that the role Podravina had played in the Ha B period as an important east-west communication route did not diminish afterwards. The two excavated graves from Slatina complemented our hitherto modest understanding of the Early Iron Age in the central Podravina region. These are the first investigated graves from that period, with a highly intertesting burial rite in flat graves with still strongly preserved Urnfield tradition. The burial rite, as well as the forms and decorations on vessels bear testimony to the peripheral position of Slatina in the eastern Hallstatt circle. On the one side, urn no. 1, spindle-whorls and the knife point to strong western influence from the area of the eastern Hallstatt circle, while flat graves in urns, the pot, decorations on urn, show eastern influence from the area of the Dalj group. These graves once again underlined the importance of the communication via the Drava plain, connecting the southeastern Alpine area with the Danubian Basin. The mentioned connection is corroborated precisely by flat graves in urns, characteristic for the Dalj group in the east, but recent investigations (Wildon, Nova Tabla) indicate that we should expect to find them also more to the west in the core territory of the southeastern Alpine Hallstatt circle.
The Drava river, just as it had incised its bed across the Pannonian Plain, so it has from times ... more The Drava river, just as it had incised its bed across the Pannonian Plain, so it has from times immemorial traced the routes that connected the south-eastern Alpine circle with the Danubian basin. Podravina was a region where various ideas and knowledge were exchanged, which is exceptionally well documented by the material culture in the younger phase of the Late Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age. Two graves discovered in Belišće, west of Osijek, complement our presently modest knowledge about the Lower Podravina region in that period.
The Beginning of the Late Bronze Age between the Eastern Alps and the Danube. Proceedings of the International conference in Osijek, Serta Instituti archaeologici 1, D. Ložnjak Dizdar, M. Dizdar (eds.), Zagreb, 2014
The territory of northern Croatia is delineated by the rivers Drava, Danube and Sava, whose basin... more The territory of northern Croatia is delineated by the rivers Drava, Danube and Sava, whose basins played an important role in the
communication system of the Late Bronze Age. The influence of communications on the everyday life and identity of Late Bronze Age
communities that inhabited this area is reflected in the distribution patterns of certain goods, but also in the ways in which people built
houses and buried their dead, as well as in the new phenomenon of hoarding, with the greatest concentration in central Posavina.
exhibition catalogue, I. Drnić (ed.), Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, 2020
How did a small Bronze Age settlement, founded at the end of the second millennium BC and later r... more How did a small Bronze Age settlement, founded at the end of the second millennium BC and later recorded in ancient written sources as Segestica and Siscia, transform into one of the most important Iron Age centers in the Sava and Drava River interfluve?
The Segestica and Siscia – a settlement from the beginning of history exhibition and catalogue try to provide an answer to this question. They present the founding, development, and the cultural dynamics of this exceptional settlement, the everyday lives of its inhabitants, their attire and warrior equipment, their diet, their economic and trading activities, and their spiritual life.
Finds that are kept in the collections of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, the Sisak Municipal Museum, and the Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum), accompanied by the results of contemporary archaeological research, have allowed the study of the continual development of the prehistoric settlement in Sisak throughout the first millennium BC, up until 35 BC, when this settlement, situated at the key strategic position for taking over Pannonia, was conquered by Roman legions led by Octavian, the future emperor Augustus. That is when the settlement became an important military stronghold that later developed into the famous Roman city of Siscia.
The majority of the Early Iron Age cremation graves of women near the Danube in northeast Croatia... more The majority of the Early Iron Age cremation graves of women near the Danube in northeast Croatia and northwest Serbia – in the cemeteries of Dalj, Batina, Doroslovo, Vukovar, and Sotin – contained an urn, a set of ceramic vessels, and sometimes costume accessories and additional jewellery items such as hair bands, pendants, or fibulae. This paper uses interdisciplinary analysis and interpretation to examine the chronology of graves 101 and 105 from the cemetery of Batina and the role of the women in the community that lived in Batina in the Early Iron Age.
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Project research tried to answer questions about how the female body was perceived, what influenced female visual identity in the Iron Age, what was the role of women in the Iron Age society, and whether the funerary customs and jewellery reflect the status of the buried women. The exploration of the Danube area cemeteries of Batina and Sotin led to interdisciplinary research of cremated anthropological remains and archaeological analyses and interpretations that resulted in papers on the material traces for the reconstruction of the costume, status and roles of women in these communities and how different female identities were created by costume and jewellery. An important research question was whether a significant change in personal social identities can be observed in costume and jewellery, and how we can recognize the relationships between the body and different costume items by studying the items.
kind of prospection campaigns as a full-value tool in archaeological research? Due to the wide availability of multi-channel equipment, data collection has become a standard procedure during the last 15 years. By contrast, the archaeological interpretation of the data is a matter of permanent epistemological development. The combination of the mentioned incomplete data sets and poor documentation of archaeological information on historical excavations and surveys present a challenge for both archaeologists and geophysicists.
The presented examples prove that substantial archaeological information can be gathered even from limited data sets. Taking into account geological, geomorphological and archaeological information, prevents us from both, merely describing geophysical data as well as from over-interpreting. It is self-evident that all information is assembled and presented in GIS, so that continuous reworking of the data is possible for all involved parties.
of the Dalj group. The continuity of life and burials on the same sites can be followed from the Late Bronze Age. Recent excavations at
Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age cemeteries in Sotin have identified 119 graves. These are cremation graves; in most of them, the cremated
remains of the dead and the remains of costume and personal items were placed in urns and covered with a bowl serving as lid. The Early Iron
Age graves included ceramic sets of pots, cups, kantharoi, and bowls, containing food and drinks as departing gifts within the funerary rite.
Interdisciplinary analyses of contexts, finds, and samples, have led to more detailed interpretations of funerary rites, identities, and the status
of the dead, by analysing specific graves. The definite context linking the pottery finds and the jewellery has resulted from the detailed dating
of the inventory in the Danube Basin from the Early Iron Age, considered within the network of communications and influences that can be
seen from the objects and funerary rites.
of the Early Iron Age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of many exceptional finds, now stored in the collections of several European museums, which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes and which helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj Group. A systematic field survey was done to determine the location of the Dalj Group cemetery in Batina. Its results indicated that the cemetery could have been located in Sredno, a site south of the contemporary settlement on Gradac. This was followed by archaeological excavations in Sredno, which revealed many cremation graves of the Dalj Group from the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. The graves contained ceramic, metal and glass finds, confirming the earlier hypotheses about the great significance of Batina as an important southern Pannonian centre from the end of the 2nd millennium BC and the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC, which stood on an important communication line along the Danube.
researched graves, especially those from the Zagreb group, dated to phases II and III. The Slatina cemetery, researched in 2009 during
the rescue excavations on the planned route of a bypass, was dated to phase Ha A2 on the basis of pottery and metal finds, according
to the chronology of H. Müller-Karpe and K. Vinski-Gasparini. The rich material heritage found in the researched graves calls for a reevaluation
of phase Ha A, since the location of the Slatina cemetery – in the valley of the River Drava – has exceptional importance when
considering the relations between the earlier and the latter phases of the Urnfield culture in the Drava valley. Moreover, the identified parallels
with the finds from the closed funerary complexes in Slatina testify to the relations between the Drava valley and the Carpathian
Basin during the phase Ha A2.
Changes in mortuary practices of communities settled in the southern Middle Danube region at the end of the Bronze Age were not significant, but they are noticeable. It is interesting to investigate how those communities located on the crossroads between the east and west of the Carpathian Basin accepted the new burial customs/practice.
communication system of the Late Bronze Age. The influence of communications on the everyday life and identity of Late Bronze Age
communities that inhabited this area is reflected in the distribution patterns of certain goods, but also in the ways in which people built
houses and buried their dead, as well as in the new phenomenon of hoarding, with the greatest concentration in central Posavina.
Project research tried to answer questions about how the female body was perceived, what influenced female visual identity in the Iron Age, what was the role of women in the Iron Age society, and whether the funerary customs and jewellery reflect the status of the buried women. The exploration of the Danube area cemeteries of Batina and Sotin led to interdisciplinary research of cremated anthropological remains and archaeological analyses and interpretations that resulted in papers on the material traces for the reconstruction of the costume, status and roles of women in these communities and how different female identities were created by costume and jewellery. An important research question was whether a significant change in personal social identities can be observed in costume and jewellery, and how we can recognize the relationships between the body and different costume items by studying the items.
kind of prospection campaigns as a full-value tool in archaeological research? Due to the wide availability of multi-channel equipment, data collection has become a standard procedure during the last 15 years. By contrast, the archaeological interpretation of the data is a matter of permanent epistemological development. The combination of the mentioned incomplete data sets and poor documentation of archaeological information on historical excavations and surveys present a challenge for both archaeologists and geophysicists.
The presented examples prove that substantial archaeological information can be gathered even from limited data sets. Taking into account geological, geomorphological and archaeological information, prevents us from both, merely describing geophysical data as well as from over-interpreting. It is self-evident that all information is assembled and presented in GIS, so that continuous reworking of the data is possible for all involved parties.
of the Dalj group. The continuity of life and burials on the same sites can be followed from the Late Bronze Age. Recent excavations at
Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age cemeteries in Sotin have identified 119 graves. These are cremation graves; in most of them, the cremated
remains of the dead and the remains of costume and personal items were placed in urns and covered with a bowl serving as lid. The Early Iron
Age graves included ceramic sets of pots, cups, kantharoi, and bowls, containing food and drinks as departing gifts within the funerary rite.
Interdisciplinary analyses of contexts, finds, and samples, have led to more detailed interpretations of funerary rites, identities, and the status
of the dead, by analysing specific graves. The definite context linking the pottery finds and the jewellery has resulted from the detailed dating
of the inventory in the Danube Basin from the Early Iron Age, considered within the network of communications and influences that can be
seen from the objects and funerary rites.
of the Early Iron Age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of many exceptional finds, now stored in the collections of several European museums, which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes and which helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj Group. A systematic field survey was done to determine the location of the Dalj Group cemetery in Batina. Its results indicated that the cemetery could have been located in Sredno, a site south of the contemporary settlement on Gradac. This was followed by archaeological excavations in Sredno, which revealed many cremation graves of the Dalj Group from the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. The graves contained ceramic, metal and glass finds, confirming the earlier hypotheses about the great significance of Batina as an important southern Pannonian centre from the end of the 2nd millennium BC and the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC, which stood on an important communication line along the Danube.
researched graves, especially those from the Zagreb group, dated to phases II and III. The Slatina cemetery, researched in 2009 during
the rescue excavations on the planned route of a bypass, was dated to phase Ha A2 on the basis of pottery and metal finds, according
to the chronology of H. Müller-Karpe and K. Vinski-Gasparini. The rich material heritage found in the researched graves calls for a reevaluation
of phase Ha A, since the location of the Slatina cemetery – in the valley of the River Drava – has exceptional importance when
considering the relations between the earlier and the latter phases of the Urnfield culture in the Drava valley. Moreover, the identified parallels
with the finds from the closed funerary complexes in Slatina testify to the relations between the Drava valley and the Carpathian
Basin during the phase Ha A2.
Changes in mortuary practices of communities settled in the southern Middle Danube region at the end of the Bronze Age were not significant, but they are noticeable. It is interesting to investigate how those communities located on the crossroads between the east and west of the Carpathian Basin accepted the new burial customs/practice.
communication system of the Late Bronze Age. The influence of communications on the everyday life and identity of Late Bronze Age
communities that inhabited this area is reflected in the distribution patterns of certain goods, but also in the ways in which people built
houses and buried their dead, as well as in the new phenomenon of hoarding, with the greatest concentration in central Posavina.
The Segestica and Siscia – a settlement from the beginning of history exhibition and catalogue try to provide an answer to this question. They present the founding, development, and the cultural dynamics of this exceptional settlement, the everyday lives of its inhabitants, their attire and warrior equipment, their diet, their economic and trading activities, and their spiritual life.
Finds that are kept in the collections of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, the Sisak Municipal Museum, and the Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum), accompanied by the results of contemporary archaeological research, have allowed the study of the continual development of the prehistoric settlement in Sisak throughout the first millennium BC, up until 35 BC, when this settlement, situated at the key strategic position for taking over Pannonia, was conquered by Roman legions led by Octavian, the future emperor Augustus. That is when the settlement became an important military stronghold that later developed into the famous Roman city of Siscia.