P1190333 (2)

Studu Archeologiczne XL

Wrocław 2007

\;>£USZ MALINOWSKI'

Iłffi LUSATIAN CULTURE FORTIFIED SITE IN KOMOROWO, DISTRICT OF SZAMOTUŁY W-A SUPPOSED AMBER FACTORY

IN THE EARLY IRON AGE_

The Lusatian culture fortified sile froro the Hallstatt D period (HaO) in Ko-■orouu. district of Szamotuły (sile 1), was cxamined twice between the two World ' ais. At that time some cross-cuts were madę through a rampart, providing some iformaticm on its structure, and an excavation was carried out in the interior, un-:nng remaindersof the building( Kostrzew ski 1929; 1933; 1938:20-21). How-tvcr. no raw materials. no amber objccts and no imports were found there.

The fortified site was re-examined in 1970 and 1971 (Malinowski 1973; >Ma). That was intendcd to be only a preliminaty survey and was to be extended :mticant!y. but unfortunately that did not happen. The trench madę at that time . ered an area of200 m². tincovering minor and major parts of debris of 5 build-ngs as well as a significant quantity of artefacts. including 4 amber beads and ■tamy as 910 pieces of raw amber. Unfortunately it is impossible to giye data canctming the weight of the amber. becausc the pieces were in a very poor condi-tion; They had crumbled due to strong crosion. and only a few of them remained bigger fragmenls (Fig. 1). Moreover, a significant number of them (329) had Tiehed during a fire at the fortified site. forming lumps containing dust. bonę frag-mcnts, etc. (Fig. 2). In the light of those melted lumps of amber we may suppose •hal some part of it was bumt, without leasing any remams

The distribution of the discovered lumps of amber seans to be interesting. f im and foremost. we may obscrve that comparatively few of them (ses eral) were htnd in the tubble of regular dwellings. which probably covered an area of about 40 at². whereas much a greatcr number (41 items) was discosered in the rubble of a smaller, narrow building, which faced a different dircction. It sbould be also "cntiooed that this atypical rubble is accompanied by (beyond its boundanes) a significant amount of amber which was not bumt as well as amber bearing traces of