60954 S5002303

MSeckć Zehrovice in Bohomia

19 pottcry, 20-25 SBpropdit*

rather Bylany* culture (cf. supplement no. 10 in the find report). A bag so labelled in a box also housing other 1943 finds, deposited in Al in Prague contained: a fragment of a La Tene bowl with in-tumed rim and black coating, a sapropelite fragment, a lump of bloomery slag and a fragment of a Hallstatt graphited pot (no.6 in the list of Late Hallstatt finds, see above).

Trenches inside the enclosure. I. Borkovsky dug a total of four trenches (here marked I-IV) in the S part of the walled enclosure not covered by woodland and 32 trenches in the wooded area of the S and N halves of the enclosure. The dimen-sions and location of the trenches in relation to each other can be inferred from his notes. The location of each trench was related to the main longer axis, running across the enclosure roughly in a N-S direction. The uncertainty about the exact position of the axis makes it impossible to plot the trenches on a plan with precision For-tunately, the reconstruction of the location of the trenches was aided by the results of the in-vestigations in 1979-88 which revealed in a few cases eridence of recent rectangular trenches with heterogeneous fili, of which four correspond to the description and location of the trenches by I. Bor-korsky. The particular cases are desenbed below. The reconstruction of the layout of the 1943 trenches is presented in Fig. 7. A certain degree of inaccuracy was unayoidable due to the lack of data.

Southern hmłf of the walled endosure Trenches south of the "diagonal' bank. Trench I (*y men* - on the balk, U. probably a section thnofh the S bank doee to the edge of the sand pit) 1 m wide. The rim of a storage jar of pink micaceous fahric was found there at a depth of 150 cm (the depth leads os to the condusion that the ditch was cut through as wefl as the remains of the bank). In trenches II to IV, un der c. 25 cm of ploughsoil, yellow sod (sand) 20 cm thick with dijrty subsoil under-neath it was tm*M. In trenches m and IV a few sapropelite fragments came to hght. The coUectiou of 32 fragments of high medieval pottery (mentioned above) may have como from this area.

Settions through the bank. Apart from the afore mentioned section through the S bank in trench I L Borkovsky also cut trenches through the W and N bank of the S sąuare of the encloeure. Section through the W bank - trench /.-Section of unspecified dimensions at the NW end of the W bank, near the NW corner of the S sąuare. The bank was madę up of sand. A błock of sapropelite was found 60 cm deep (now missing), and two La Tino sherds and a Hallstatt fragment with graphite coating 130 cm deep. A further 4 pieces of sapropelite aro said to have come from the NW corner of the bank (no further details given). - Section thnmgh the S bank and ditch - trench 9: Section 11 mlong, of varving width, roughly in the middle of the bank. Under the forest humus (15 cm thick) was grey clayey-sandy

the LT B2-C1 settlement. Pottery (e.g. the grated specimens), on the other hand, belong to the LT C2-D1 period and coincide with the ceramic u-aemblages from the latest featureo on the site.

At that time the working of sapropelite had not been going on at the lite any morę. Fragments of sapropelite preaent in great quantities within the area of the settlement could only have been of a symbolic significance for the local community or that of antiąuitiea or curiosities. Sapropelite fragments commonly occur in the fili of features from that period as a consequence of post-depoeitional processes (wash from the settlement layer con-taining materiał both from the earlier and later settlement periods). According to the analysis of M. Beech (this volume), the animal bonę as-semblage from this pit does not differ by its com-position from the bonę assemblages of both earlier and later periods of the site occupation. In other words, had the pit not contained the stone sculp-ture fragments, its contents would not appear as different in any way from the contents of other LT C2-D1 features on the site.

Excavations by I. Borkovsky in 1943

In October 1943 I. Borkovsky carried out excava-tions outside the banks in an area adjoining the place where the pit containing the stone head had been discovered, and he also dug a serie* of smali trenches within the enclosure. Ali infonnatian con-cerning the investigations comes from the surviv-ing part of documentation by L Borkovsky, sup-plementing the find report no. 753/68.

Excavations outside the banks. Ninę adjoining trenches formed a continuous excavated area of morę than 400 m², situ ated west of the SW corner of the enclosure in an area undisturbed by the sand pit and not covered by woodland, west of the pit containing the head, on cadaster plot no.321/1. In all the trenches, underlying the ploughsoil and "humus-mixed sand" at a depth of 50 - 80 cm was the subsoil of sand. No archaeological finds came to light. ^

Feature in the face of the sand pit. C. 2 m away from the pit containing the head I. Borkovsky identified another feature, risible in the sand pit face (Jansovó 1968,472): A bowl-shaped pit, 6 m wide, 95 cm deep with a dark fili, which produced "Hallstatt to La Tfene" sherds and bloomery slag. Unfortunately, no other infonnatian is avail-able and the finds have been lost. The original records by I. Borkovsky, however, mention finds discovered October 5,1943 in "trenches at the NE end of the cadaster plot" of the "Knoviz-ByIany or