image/svg+xml89XI/1/2020INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICANATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGYhomepage: http://www.iansa.euLandscape Transformed: Archaeological, Historical and Environmental Dating of the Early Modern Field System in Valštejn, Czech RepublicIvana Šitnerováa,b*, Jaromír Beneša,b, Ivana Trpákovác, Jiří Bumerla,b, Veronika Komárkováa, Tereza Majerovičováa,b, Lenka Hrabákováb, Kristina JanečkovácaLaboratory of Archaeobotany and Palaeoecology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Na Zlaté stoce 3, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech RepublicbInstitute of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31a, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech RepubliccDepartment of Land Use and Improvement, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, 135 00 Prague-Suchdol, Czech Republic1. IntroductionThere are several main types of arable feld systems across the world. The most common are terraced felds, then feld systems with visible boundaries between parcels, followed by open felds (Agnoletti et al., 2015). Field systems called open felds mostly dominate in Great Britain. These unhedged felds have a wide variety of forms. They can be made up as a system of long strip parcels grouped into blocks, they could be in the form of dispersed strips, or they could comprise compact blocks (Pollard et al., 1974;Rackham, 1986; Williamson, 2018). Terraced felds, especially typical for Asia (called “paddy felds”) (Iiyama et al., 2005; Fukamachi, 2017), are also found in South America (Goodman-Elgar, 2008), and in the African mountainous regions of Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda (Tarolli et al., 2014). In a European context, terraced felds are most common in southern Europe and in Alpine regions (Varotto et al., 2019; Tarolli et al., 2019). In western and central Europe, the most common types of feld systems are defned by visible boundaries, usually without signifcant terracing. These are referred to as “bocage” and “hedgerow landscapes” in western Europe (France and Great Britain) (Baundry et al., 2000). A similar type of this landscape is also found in the Czech Republic, where this agrarian hinterland of villages is called “plužina”. It is defned as an economically usable part of the landscape belonging to a single village settlement, and it is the sum of all the felds, meadows and pastures interconnected by Volume XI ● Issue 1/2020 ● Pages 89–101*Corresponding author. E-mail: ivana.pravcova@gmail.comARTICLE INFOArticle history:Received: 19thMarch 2020Accepted: 15thJuly 2020DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24916/iansa.2020.1.7Key words:feld systemradiocarbon AMSmodern soil dating210Pb and 137Csarchaeobotanyanthracologyold wood efectlandscape transformationABSTRACTThe historical feld system of Valštejn represents one of the most extensive historical landscape complexes in the Czech Republic. Archaeological excavation of a former agricultural terrace (now a meadow) revealed the elaborate construction of a wall and stone foundation under the former arable feld. This construction probably served for drainage and for soil protection. Archaeobotanical sampling facilitated the use of the charred plant material for radiocarbon dating of the soil profle, supported by the measurement of radionuclides 210Pb and 137Cs activity in order to estimate the age and stratigraphic integrity of the soil. An interesting record was obtained by archaeobotanical analyses of the lowermost layer, where wood charcoal and needles of fr (Abies alba) were identifed and dated by AMS 14C. A discrepancy between the younger needle and much older charcoal could indicate an example of the old wood efect in archaeological chronology. The study has brought comprehensive results using environmental archaeology methods and sheds light on one of the stages of historical landscape transformation of the Early Modern Ages in central Europe.
image/svg+xmlIANSA 2020 ● XI/1 ● 89–101Ivana Šitnerová, Jaromír Beneš, Ivana Trpáková, Jiří Bumerl, Veronika Komárková, Tereza Majerovičová, Lenka Hrabáková, Kristina Janečková: Landscape Transformed: Archaeological, Historical and Environmental Dating of the Early Modern Field System in Valštejn, Czech Republic90a network of paths (Gojda, 2000). The visible parts of this hinterland can be typical feld strips and agrarian terraces.The agrarian hinterland of a village came to be defned in central Europe by the traditional concept of German historical geography (in German “die Flur”: Krüger, 1967; Born, 1979; Denecke, 1979; Sperling, 1982). This school defnes “die Flur” as the historically-developed structure of a village’s landholding, whose current layout is the result of many changes in dynamics, local economy and property ownership. The term “die Flur” was a big topic in German historical literature of the 19thcentury, frequently enriched with a certain ethnic signifcance. Attention has been paid in the last decades to the origins of diferent types of agrarian hinterland associated with various historical villages. Recent studies omit the ethnical meaning underpinning the historical circumstances of settlement activities (Žemlička, 2014). The German schools of agrarian history and historical geography were followed by ethnographic and historical research in Czechoslovakia and in the Czech Republic (Pohl, 1934–1935; Dohnal, 2003; Klír, 2003). Transformation of the landscape is observed primarily through the prism of medieval colonization (Klápště, 2005; 2012; Žemlička, 1997; 2014). Field systems and their patterns are, of course, an integral part of medieval and Early Modern villages to which they belong.The archaeology of medieval and Early Modern villages has primarily focused on their residential area, particularly on abandoned medieval settlement zones with buildings. Such interest in agrarian hinterland dates from the second half of the last century. New methods of remote sensing (Gojda, John eds., 2013; Holata et al., 2018) and environmental archaeology (Houfková et al., 2015; 2019; Hejcman et al., 2013a; 2013b) have contributed much to the research of the agrarian hinterland of villages. Thanks to this new research, it is now possible to resolve questions of dating, function and the characters of agrarian background efectively.One of the frst archaeological studies focusing on the identifcation of the village agrarian hinterland in Bohemia was taken in the Kostelec nad Černými lesy region by Z. Smetánka and J. Klápště (Klápště, 1978;Klápště, Smetánka, 1979; Smetánka, Klápště, 1981), and in Moravia by V. Nekuda in the abandoned village Pfafenschlag