Staré Hradisko is one of the major Celtic oppida in Moravia and an important Late Iron Age centre in Central Europe. The site is located on the eastern edge of the Drahany Highlands, near the village of Malé Hradisko, roughly halfway between Prostějov and Boskovice. It occupies an isolated promontory between two watercourses, a naturally defensive position later reinforced by massive fortifications that are still clearly visible in the landscape today.

The fortified area covered approximately 37 hectares and was enclosed by ramparts with a total length of nearly 2.8 kilometres. Inside, the oppidum was not filled with randomly placed houses but carefully planned compounds measuring around 50 × 50 metres, separated by roads, some of them paved or reinforced. Similar settlement structures have also been identified outside the western fortifications, indicating a much larger functional settlement zone.

Staré Hradisko was not only a residential centre but above all a hub of craft production and long-distance exchange. Archaeological evidence confirms metalworking, coin minting, glass and bone working, amber processing and pottery production. Finds of Mediterranean imports and Roman Republican coins, together with large quantities of amber, point to the oppidum’s integration into long-distance trade networks, including routes connected with the Amber Road.

Chronologically, the site was occupied from the LT C2 phase, around the middle of the 2nd century BC, until the later part of LT D1, shortly after the middle of the 1st century BC. Although the surrounding environment was less suitable for agriculture than nearby fertile regions, archaeozoological remains and agricultural tools show that food production formed an important part of the local economy.

This site plays an important role in the research framework of the Between the Celts and the Northern People project, which focuses on cultural, economic and environmental interactions between La Tène communities and non-La Tène groups in Central Europe during the Middle and Late Pre-Roman Iron Age. Oppida such as Staré Hradisko provide crucial evidence for understanding how craft production, exchange networks and settlement organisation functioned within broader contact zones north of the Carpathians and Sudetes.

This post follows our previous update presenting artefact analyses from ongoing research. In the coming entries, we will return to Staré Hradisko by looking more closely at specific finds and analytical results that help reconstruct everyday life, economy and connectivity in this part of Iron Age Europe.

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All posts about the oppidum in Staré Hradisko