This research project explores the cultural, economic, and environmental interactions between La Tène and non-La Tène (Jastorf/Przeworsk-type) societies in Central Europe during the Middle and Late Pre-Roman Iron Age.
While the La Tène culture is often associated with dynamic migration and rich material traditions linked to the Celtic world, northern communities developed distinct models of economy, mobility, and land use. This project examines the archaeological record to understand how these populations interacted, coexisted, and shaped the Iron Age landscape north of the Carpathians and Sudetes.
By combining traditional archaeological methods with scientific analyses—such as organic residue analysis, archaeobotany, and use-wear studies—we aim to shed light on how people lived, what they ate, and how they organized their settlements and daily life in a changing and interconnected world.
Follow this project for ongoing updates, expert interviews, and accessible articles exploring how Northern European contact zones connected communities through exchange, adaptation, and innovation.
The project is hosted at Charles University in Prague and funded by the
Czech Science Foundation (GAČR, project no. 25-15914I).
It involves close collaboration with partner institutions across Central Europe.
Among the finds from Staré Hradisko are ceramic fragments that can be classified stylistically as northern, that is, related to traditions characteristic of the Przeworsk cultural environment. Such material has already been noted and discussed in earlier publications, most notably by Miloš Čižmář. What has not been explicitly addressed, however, is an important technological detail… Read more: Staré Hradisko – northern-style pottery made locally?
The iron fibula illustrated here belongs to Kostrzewski’s Type K, a form that plays an important role in discussions of cultural contacts and chronology in Central Europe during the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age. Fibulae of this type are not typical of the La Tène cultural sphere and, when found in La Tène contexts, are consistently… Read more: Staré Hradisko – what is a Przeworsk fibula doing in a Celtic oppidum?
The fortification system of Staré Hradisko has been recognised since the earliest archaeological investigations. In 1912, František Lipka and Karel Snětina described an extensive defensive layout composed of ramparts and terraces with a total length of approximately two kilometres. They assumed that the western ramparts, originally much higher, were reinforced with wooden palisades, while at… Read more: Staré Hradisko – fortifications
Excavations at Staré Hradisko demonstrated that the oppidum was not an agglomeration of randomly placed houses, but a carefully structured settlement organised around enclosed courtyards (dvorce). Early researchers could not yet define this layout, but already in the mid-twentieth century J. Bohm observed that residential buildings in the western outer bailey formed larger complexes functioning… Read more: Staré Hradisko – a courtyard-based city with roads and water systems
The understanding of settlement architecture at Staré Hradisko developed slowly and unevenly, shaped by the methods and expectations of successive generations of researchers. During the earliest excavations conducted before the First World War by F. Lipka and K. Snětina, only around twenty sunken features were explored. These pits were dug into the bedrock, had flat… Read more: Staré Hradisko – houses archaeologists did not understand at first
