Dolina 2010 – Results of Trial Excavations of the Glavičice Prehistoric Cemetery

Drugu godinu zaredom provedena su probna arheološka istraživanja prapovijesnog groblja Glavičice. Istražen je najjužniji tumul 6 pod kojim su se nalazila dva paljevinska groba u vertikalnom stratigrafskom odnosu. Prilozi u grobovima ukazuju da su pokojnici pokopani početkom željeznog doba (Ha C1a) spajajući tradiciju paljevinskog pokopavanja kulture polja sa žarama s halštatskom modom – označavanjem groba nasipom tumula.For the second year, archaeological trial excavations of the Glavičice prehistoric cemetery in Dolina were conducted. The southernmost Tumulus 6 was excavated, under which there were two incineration graves in a vertical stratigraphic relationship. The grave goods suggest that the deceased were buried at the beginning of the Iron Age (Ha C1a), thus connecting the tradition of cremation burials of the Urnfield culture with the Hallstatt fashion of marking graves by erecting tumuli. Under a mound of grey mixed earth in the south-western quarter of the tumulus, incineration remains of a rectangular shape with a large amount of soot were identified as Grave 1. It was constructed with four wooden pillars in the corners, along which planks were probably laid. In the grave, thus prepared, a pot was laid – an urn with the incinerated bones of the deceased, among which an iron wire double-looped fibula was unearthed with a triangular foot and a round bow cross-section. The fibula is relatively small. In the urn-pot, an iron bead was found, along with small bronze rivets of 0.5 cm in diameter. The urn was covered with the remains of a funeral pyre with soot, among which incinerated bones, pottery shards, a large amount of small bronze rivets, fragments of a burned iron artefact, two bone pendants, one of which was decorated with concentric circles, and a stone pendant which had deliberately been broken in three parts, were found. Grave 1 was sunk in the mound of Grave 2. Finds in Grave 1, Tumulus 6 suggest a burial of a prominent person from the beginning of the Early Iron Age. The incineration burial partly in the urn and partly in the rest of the grave testifies to the traditions of the Urnfield culture. In the grave, a whetstone was unearthed, frequently encountered in graves at Dalj and Batina (Metzner-Nebelsick 2002: T. 6: 26 passim). The find from Grave 1 of Tumulus 6 might be the currently westernmost known find of this type of whetstone, associated with eastern, so-called Thraco-Cimmerian, influences. Another extraordinary find is that of a double-looped iron fibula with a triangular foot and a bow with a round cross-section of the type 2a based on Gabrovec, for which there are close analogies in Grave 250 in Ljubljana (Gabrovec 1970: 24, Map V, T. 8: 8). The densest distribution of this type of fibulae has been documented in Slovenia (Lower Carniola, Ljubljana, Inner Carniola). However, isolated finds are also known from Glasinci and Vukovar (Gabrovec 1970: map V) and the find from Dolina fits well into this picture. Particularly interesting is the find of approximately one hundred small bronze rivets of 0.5 cm in diameter, which formed a constituent part of the attire or equipment of the deceased, and were cremated along with them. They can be interpreted in two ways: a part of their attire (belt, mantle or waistcoat) decorated with rivets, or a bowl-shaped helmet of the Libna group (Škoberne 1999: 88, Fig. 59–60). The iron fibula and the presumed bowl-shaped helmet from Grave 1 testify to western influences, while the ceramic vessels, whetstone and bone pendants suggest eastern connections, which is not surprising considering the geographical position of Dolina in the Sava valley, a transversal between the south-eastern Alps and Danube region. The Grave 2 mound was made of brown sandy earth, and is situated in the central part of the grave, in its south-eastern and south-western quarters. Grave 2 was placed in the southern part of the tumulus. Incinerated bones mixed with pottery shards and an amount of soot were laid in some sort of organic material. North of the incinerated bones, a set consisting of three pots, a cup and a bowl was laid. Grave 2 was covered with brown sandy earth and marked from the outside, as Grave 1 lay above it and north of it. Grave 2 lay on a layer of sterile soil consisting of light yellow sand. In Grave 2, Tumulus 8, a pottery set was unearthed. The shapes of the vessels belong to types of the late Urnfield culture in Posavina, while two pots are extraordinarily biconical, which, along with an incised decoration filled by an incrustation, has analogies in the central Bosnian group (Čović 1987: Fig. 27). The shapes and incised decoration might equally have been inspired by the East, where biconical pots with incised decorations appear in the further eastern Vis-Pivnica group (Čović 1988: 102, Fig. 28), while the incised geometrical decorations and wavy lines were a fashionable pottery decoration style in the wider area between the Lower Danube region from Banija and Kordun in the west, along the River Sava to Slovenian Podravje and Pomurje along the River Drava in the period between the 11th and 8th centuries BC (Hänsel 1976; Teržan 1995). At a later stage, similar ornamentation was inherited from the Basarabi style, also present on sites in northern Bosnia (Gavranović 2007) and in the west up to White Carniola in Slovenia (Dular 1979). The idea of the pottery set and tumuli, documented in Grave 2, Tumulus 6 testifies to the presence of Hallstatt ideas on the periphery of the eastern Hallstatt circle. Both excavated tumuli (T 6 and T 8) in Dolina testify to a community that communicated with its contemporaries in the neighbourhood but also from a wider area. Besides parts of attire suggesting wider connections and the local expressions in pottery, there are other elements suggesting that the members of the community living in Dolina at the beginning of the Iron Age were open to innovations (e.g. the idea of tumuli), which they applied in their everyday life (burial with two incineration graves with separate mounds in a single tumulus). This is a hypothesis that needs to be confirmed in excavations of a larger surface