EAA 2023: Abstract

Our study is focused on the reconstruction of the community economy in the context of the Late Bronze Age; understanding the processes that led to the filling of features and the waste management.
The settlement of Březnice is located on less fertile soils in higher altitude (ca 455 m a.s.l). The microregion of Bechyně is one of the warmest areas in South Bohemia. In terms of humidity, this area is characterised as below average, not exceeding annual total precipitation of 600 mm. During the Late Bronze Age (1300–1000 BC) the climate in South Bohemia was rather stable and dry.
These research questions were addressed based on plant macroremains, charcoals, phytoliths, starch, micromorphology, phosphates and magnetic volume susceptibility. The results showed the waste character of features infills which reflect specific economy and habitats of single households. The composition of the archaeobotanical assemblages was not determined by the type of feature, similarities in the plant spectra could often be observed in the infill of features that were located close to each other.
The dependence of crop spectrum on the quality of soils, and on the altitude, has been demonstrated for the Březnice site. The summer crops were dominant (barely and millet), while winter crops were cultivated in many species, but smaller amount. The economy was probably adapted to shorter vegetation seasons with possible precipitation fluctuation.
Charred remains of firewood inside the assemblages contained a proportion of burnt oak structures. The remains of various parts of uncharred plants were detected by phytolith and starch analyses. Animal proteins detected the presence of livestock meat and dung. Anomalies in soil phosphate contained different amounts of organic matter. Magnetic susceptibility measurements showed that the features were backfilled in a one-time event. Sedimentological analysis showed that the infills of the different types of features were similar.

Plant waste, waste disposal, recycling, settlement development, macroremains, environmental sciences

Poster presentation

  Abstract (PDF)
 Full paper (PDF)

Ondrej Štastný⁵

Tereza Šálková⁵
Kristýna Budilová⁶
Jaromír Kovárník⁶
Jan Novák²
Jaroslav Pavelka¹
Barbora Strouhalová³
Libor Vobejda⁵
Martin Kuna⁴
Ondřej Chvojka⁵