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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Ensuring a stable water supply was one of the fundamental challenges for the inhabitants of the oppidum at Staré Hradisko. Although the site was located in a landscape naturally provided with water, access to it was neither uniform nor always convenient, especially within the fortified area. The oppidum was situated between two watercourses, and several […]

Four pottery kilns discovered in the western outer bailey of the oppidum at Staré Hradisko provide direct evidence of local ceramic production. These installations belong to a type widely known from the Late La Tène period across Europe and represent a well-developed and standardised technological solution. The kilns were vertical, two-chamber structures consisting of a […]

A noteworthy find from Staré Hradisko is a previously unpublished fragment of a small ceramic cup. Although modest in size, this fragment is culturally informative. Small cups, usually equipped with a handle, are a common vessel type in the Przeworsk culture, where they form a regular part of ceramic assemblages. In contrast, such vessels are […]

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 […]

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 […]