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.
The animal bone assemblage from Bytomin (Bytnik), site 6, shows clearly that the settlement economy relied mainly on domestic animals. Among 1,429 analysed finds, mammals dominated overwhelmingly, while birds, fish, and molluscs were represented only in small numbers. The most important domestic species were cattle, pigs, and sheep/goats, with cattle clearly in first place. Wild… Read more: Bytomin (Bytnik), site no. 6 – results of the archaeozoological analysis
Animal bones are among the most informative categories of evidence recovered during archaeological excavation, but only if they are studied systematically. On their own, bones are often fragmentary, weathered, burnt, gnawed, or displaced. Once analysed in context, however, they become a source of evidence for subsistence, herd management, butchery, craft production, the use of animals… Read more: Why archaeozoological research matters?
The history of research at Bytomin (Bytnik) is not limited to the excavations of site 6 itself. The broader archaeological significance of this area became clear through a combination of older chance finds, rescue excavations, geophysical survey, and later systematic fieldwork, which together revealed a settlement and cemetery forming part of the same prehistoric landscape.… Read more: Bytomin (Bytnik), sites 1 and 6 – a history of archaeological research
Site no. 6 in Bytomin (modern Bytnik, near Głogów, Lower Silesia) is one of the more informative settlement sites of the Younger Pre-Roman Period in the Middle Odra region. It is located on a terrace within the Odra river valley, in an environment that combined access to water, fertile loess soils, and nearby meadows suitable… Read more: Bytomin (Bytnik), site no. 6 – settlement of the Younger Pre-Roman Period
Staré Hradisko functioned within a well-developed economic system characteristic of the Late La Tène period. The level of craft production and the organisation of settlement created favourable conditions for both local and long-distance exchange. The immediate economic hinterland of the oppidum was the fertile Haná region. Lowland settlements located there supplied agricultural products necessary for… Read more: Staré Hradisko – a centre of exchange between north and south
