Remarkable sites dating from the late Neolithic period (ca. 4800-4600 BC) with roughly circular and sometimes multiple ditches (ø 50-100-240 m or more) and entrances oriented approximately towards the cardinal points are known as rondels and professionally investigated by J. Kovárník. These are prehistoric monuments. When digging out the ditch of the simple rondel at Těšetice-Kyjovice, Znojmo District, people had to remove ca. 1,530 m3, i.e. 2,754 tons of hard loess, only with the help of simple wooden tools. Thus, these were places where activities from the spheres of labour organisation and fertility cults important to late Neolithic farmers probably took place. Thanks to aerial archaeology, we have been able to increase the numbers of known rondels both in eastern Bohemia (2012: Chlum and Lochenice II, Hradec Králové District, Semonice, Náchod District, Fig. 1) and in Moravia (Vedrovice, Znojmo District: 1983; Rašovice, Vyškov District: 1984 Fig. 2, Milovice, Břeclav District: 2012, etc.). We analyse the occurrence of rondels as features with almost identical construction elements in an area from Romania (Iclod cultural group, etc.) through eastern (Csőszhalom group), western Hungary and southwestern Slovakia (Lengyel culture), Lower Austria and southern Moravia (Moravian-East Austrian group of the Painted Pottery culture of the Middle Danube region), to Bohemia, Poland, Lower Bavaria and central Germany (Rössen culture), and we highlight this in various archaeological cultures. The Department of Archaeology at the FF UHK excavated the northwestern entrance to the rondel at Plotiště nad Labem II (in 2013, 2014: Fig. 3). This excavation yielded valuable findings about the way the ditches were encircled with massive earthworks, about a new type of rondel, about the astronomical orientation of the entrances and other valuable results which are appreciated abroad, too. We are currently analysing a double rondel with outer earthworks at Třebovětice, Jičín District (Fig. 4-5) which is unique in a European context. Among others, we focused on rondel archaeology within the international symposium “Centenary of Jaroslav Palliardi´s Neolithic and Aeneolithic Relative Chronology (1914-2014),” which we organized in 2014.
CONTACT
doc. PhDr. Kovárník Jaromír, CSc.
e. jaromir.kovarnik@uhk.cz
t. +420 493 331 269
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