The area of the Polish Carpathians has so far produced no sepulchral finds of the Przeworsk culture which could be dated without any doubt to the Roman period. Site 25 in the cemetery at Prusiek, gmina Sanok, is the first discovery of this kind in the area. The four cremation urn graves found there belong to Phase B2/C1 and C1a of the Roman Period. Their inventory shows direct indebtedness to the eastern zone of the Przeworsk culture. In effect, the find in the Prusiek cemetery can be taken as a clear proof of the expansion of the Przeworsk culture bearers in the direction of the Upper Tisa basin.
The Early Roman artefacts found in the interfluve of the rivers Vistula and San indicate that the travel and transport routes that run through the area in question led not only to the development of local settlement but also to the formation of a hierarchical local society. This is indicated by the presence of richly furnished burials, with grave goods including imported metal vessels. In the Younger and Late Roman Period, the region underwent changes caused by the growth of settlement and its move to the south.
The study presents and analyses materials from two hillforts located in North-Western Slovakia, where the Early Roman Age skeletal graves were discovered. At that time, Púchov culture hillforts disappeared abruptly. Significant changes in ethnical composition as well as in power structure led to the modification of settlement structure in the Western Carpathians. Numerous pieces of weaponry, inventories and hoards show that both hillforts analysed in this paper were destroyed in the first decades of the Current Era. Inventories of graves containing Noric-Pannonian attire can be attributed to the same period. So far, we do not know any cemeteries or graves of members of the culture dated back to the younger La Tène and Early Roman Periods. There are only sacrificial sites with dominating cremation rituals. Female burials found on the slopes below the fortifications in Bytča-Hrabové and in Mikušovce belong – together with the older finds from Púchov – to unique finds attributed to the culture. Judging by the position of the deceased and detected fatal injuries, we can assume that these burials reflect some previously unknown ritual practices. The question of whether the deceased were members of the local culture or rather new colonisers – presumably coming from the Noricum milieu - will be answered by prepared DNA and Isotope analyses.
Ceramic spoons are well known since early prehistory, though their occurrence in Iron Age of Central Europe is restricted to the area of Jastorf Culture and derivate cultural groups. In this paper, a small number of this artefacts is presented, which come from the Early Roman Period settlement Mlékojedy and other sites in Bohemia as well. Almost all of them could be interpreted as signs of migrations from the late Jastorf Culture area into the Late La Tène Period or representatives of quickly evolving and dispersing Großromstedt Culture at the turn of Late La Tène and Early Roman Periods.
There are two agglomerations of hill-forts and settlements in Turiec region, in northern Slovakia that provided remarkable finds from the Middle La Tène Period to the beginning of the Roman Period, from the pre-Púchov stage and the La Tène phase of the Púchov Culture. It is a system of terraced settlements and fortified refugia on the hilltops of mountains in Folkušová – Necpaly and Blatnica. Blatnica was the regional centre in the Early to the Middle La Tène Periods and the Early Roman Period. Both centres were used at the time of the largest settlement expansion in northern Carpathians, from the Middle La Tène Period to the beginning of Roman Period, when they became extinct violently. A special feature of the both agglomerations is long-term use, preservation state of old roads and combination of terraced settlements with fortifications on inaccessible peaks with great altitudes. Hoards of La Tène swords are the continuation of long tradition of sacrificial places around the hilltop Plešovica, which is enclosed with the Early Medieval princely grave. The study also observes a number of artefacts that document the connection of northern Slovakia with southeastern Europe in the Late La Tène Period.
In the article, the author deals with the occurrence and interpretation of Elbe-Germanic silver fibulae in the area north of the middle Danube, i. e. in Bohemia, Moravia, southwestern Slovakia and the Danube part of Lower Austria, respectively, in the territory inhabited in the early Roman period by the Polabian Germans (Suebi). Spring covered fibulae (Rollenkappenfibeln) and fibulae with eyes (Augenfibeln) are typical for B1 grade, in grades B2 – B2/C1 the elite wore tube-shaped (Trompetenfibeln) and knee-shaped (Kniefibeln) fibulae. The new types of fibulae (Almgren 80 var. PňovBliestorf and Almgren 142 var. Dobšice-Drösing) are also singled out in the article. The wealthiest graves do not contain East Germanic (Przeworsk culture and Wielbark culture) or Roman silver fibulae, which are also found in the investigated area, but only Elbe-Germanic fibulae. On the basis of typo-chronological analysis, during the early Roman period, the shift of power centres from central and north-western Bohemia in phases B1a-b can be traced, which are mainly connected with the existence of the so-called Marobud Empire to the central Danube region in the 2nd century (phase B2a – b), i. e. to southern Moravia and southwestern Slovakia.
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