Crossing the Alps. Early urbanism between Northern Italy and Central Europe (900-400 BC)

0532559 - ARÚ 2021 RIV NL eng M - Monography Chapter
Chytráček, Miloslav
Early urbanism and the relationship between Northern Italy and Bohemia in the Early Iron Age.
Crossing the Alps. Early urbanism between Northern Italy and Central Europe (900-400 BC). Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2020 - (Zamboni, L.; Fernández-Götz, M.; Metzner-Nebelsick, C.), s. 333-348. ISBN 978-90-8890-961-0
Grant - others:Rada Programu interní podpory projektů mezinárodní spolupráce AV ČR(CZ) M300021201
Program: M
Institutional support: RVO:67985912
Keywords : Bohemia * Early Iron Age * early urbanism * lowland settlements * hillforts * social structures * graves * imports
OECD category: Archaeology

If we want to examine and try to interpret the remains of the first planned Early Iron Age settlement developments in Central Europe, we need to approach the patterns of residential urban structures in a wider social context. In Bohemia, the planned concentric structure of settlements can be observed already in some lowland settlements from the beginning of the Iron Age. In the period comprising the 7th and early 6th centuries BC, Bohemia was already connected to the system of pathways and contacts with northern Italy are manifested in the archaeological record. In the second half of the 6th century BC, the period of the Hallstatt D2-3 stages, there was an increase in the number of fortified hilltop sites with a marked differentiation of these settlements. In the 6th to 5th centuries BC, a higher number of smaller hilltop fortified sites of local elites existed in the Bohemian basin. The imports and their imitations also reveal the presence of local elites in certain lowland settlements. Among the large number of Bohemian hillforts from the 6th to 5th centuries BC, the fortified hilltop sites in Minice, Závist, and Vladař are considered important centres of power with evidence of ties to distant regions, especially the Mediterranean area. The beginnings of urbanism in the temperate zone of Europe in the Early Iron Age can be assessed using a social-anthropological model for prehistoric archaeology distinguishing between a group-oriented society (“corporate mode”) and an individual-oriented society (“network mode”). Both modes point to societies with a similar degree of social-political complexity, however, with different organisation and behaviour of the elites. The existence of both forms of societal organisation can be traced in Early Iron Age Bohemia.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0311018