The LBK site of Vráble in Southwestern Slovakia: Selected results of the excavation season 2016

Abstract

This paper presents selected results of the excavation campaign 2016 in the southeastern of the three LBK settlements of Vráble/Slovakia . On a total area of 2283 m2 five LBK longhouses with their characteristic cross-rows of three posts and long pits flank- ing the houses were completely or partially uncovered, in addition four storage pits and a possible sunken-floor building . Numerous 14C dates as well as stratigraphic relations show that the excavated houses were not, as originally assumed, in use at the same time, but rep- resent a time depth of up to 200 years . The spectrum of finds includes typical artefacts of the LBK such as pottery, chipped stone tools, ground stone tools and bone tools . However, the houses show subtle differences in their material culture, obsidian artefacts and some fragments of the so-called “Bükk pottery” refer to long-distance contacts in Eastern Slo- vakia . As an outstanding find, an obsidian core was recovered from one of the post holes . It must have been deliberately deposited in the post hole, either when the house was built or when it was dismantled . A fairly complete human skeleton was found in a long pit . The male individual aged 20–35 had been laying open for some time as dislocated bones show . The poorly preserved archaeobotanical remains are dominated by einkorn, emmer is much rarer . The paper concludes with reflections on the social relations between the inhabitants of the three largely simultaneous settlements of Vráble, which, in spite of all similarities, were obviously deliberately marking-off from each other . This is particularly evident in the enclosure around the southwestern settlement, which has no entrances to the other two settlements . This could be the reaction to “fission-and-fusion” processes in which social tensions are resolved or mitigated by the constant rearrangement of social relations .