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53
XIII/1/2022
INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA
NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
Dolní Věstonice – Vysoká zahrada: an Integrated Geophysical Survey of an
Early Medieval Fortifed Settlement
Peter Milo
1*
, Michaela Prišťáková
1
, Tomáš Tencer
1
, Michal Vágner
1
, Igor Murín
2
1
Department of Archaeology and Museology, Masaryk University, Arne Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic
2
Archaeological Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Akademická 2, 949 21 Nitra, Slovakia
1. Introduction
Studying fortifed settlements is one of the essential topics
in mediaeval archaeology. Research within Moravia
(a region located in the eastern half of the Czech Republic)
has long tended to concentrate on resolving the issues of
important sites related to the existence of the Moravian
principality in the 9
th
and 10
th
centuries. However, the sites
linked to the building of the Přemyslid domain in the 11
th
and 12
th
centuries have been investigated to a lesser extent.
Moravia was annexed by Bohemia in the frst half of the 11
th
century. This process went hand in hand with the building
of an administrative system of fortifed points to ensure
the execution of Přemyslid princely power in Moravia.
This paper presents the results of research into the fortifed
settlement of Dolní Věstonice – Vysoká zahrada, which
represents one such local centre. The present study aims
to extend our knowledge with new data acquired with the
help of a combination of non-invasive survey methods. The
results of our contribution are summarised and an attempt is
made to show them in the context of other well-known facts.
2. The site and its archaeological excavation
The fortifed settlement of Vysoká zahrada is situated
north of the village of Dolní Věstonice. The site used to be
surrounded by the Dyje (Thaya) River from its southern side,
but since the 1980s the surrounding area has been fooded
due to the construction of the Nové Mlýny waterworks
(Figure 1). The fortifed area of the settlement covers an area
of about 1 ha, and preserved ramparts in the northern and
western part reach up to 6 m in height. The southern part
of the site was destroyed due to the meandering fow of the
Dyje River.
The site was mentioned for the frst time by Inocenc
Ladislav Červinka in 1928 as a fortifed settlement from
the time of the Bohemian Duke Břetislav (Červinka, 1928,
p.124). The beginning of settlement dates back to the second
half of the 10
th
century (Měřínský, 1986, pp.61–62, p.66).
Volume XIII ● Issue 1/2022 ● Pages 53–61
*Corresponding author. E-mail: peter.milo@mail.muni.cz
ARTICLE INFO
Article history:
Received: 19
th
November 2021
Accepted: 5
th
January 2022
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24916/iansa.2022.1.5
Keywords:
Early Medieval Period
fortifed settlement
fortifcation
archaeological excavation
electrical resistivity tomography
ground-penetrating radar survey
magnetometry
ABSTRACT
The fortifed settlement at Dolní Věstonice – Vysoká zahrada belongs to the important Early Medieval
centres connected with the establishment of the Přemyslid domain in Moravia. The site functioned
as a local administrative and economic centre from about the middle of the 11
th
century to the end of
the 12
th
century. In written historical sources it was known as Strachotíngrad (“Castrum Strachotín”).
Between 1948 and 1986, several minor archaeological excavations were made at this site. Our work’s
purpose was to gain new knowledge by deploying proven geophysical prospecting methods in
archaeology. The frst two of these methods, Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Ground-
penetrating radar (GPR) focused on the rampart. Within the third used method – magnetometry, we
focused on the prospection of the inner area of the hillfort. Based on the results, it was possible to
identify some of the construction features of the fortifcation and locate the course of the no longer
existing rampart and several settlement structures. At the same time, the geophysical survey also made
clear the overall plan of past archaeological excavations.
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IANSA 2022 ● XIII/1 ● 53–61
Peter Milo, Michaela Prišťáková, Tomáš Tencer, Michal Vágner, Igor Murín: Dolní Věstonice – Vysoká zahrada: an Integrated Geophysical Survey
of an Early Medieval Fortifed Settlement
54
The fortifcation is presumed to have been built in the second
half of the 11
th
century (Procházka, 2009, p.134). According
to Boris Novotný, it had two construction phases, and the
demise of both can be linked to violent events (Novotný,
1982a, pp.325–326, p.333). During the second half of the
11
th
century, a single-nave stone church with a horseshoe-
shaped apse was built, and sometime in the middle of
the 12
th
century was surrounded by a wooden palisade.
Around this time, a cemetery was established by the church
(Jelínková and Kavánová, 2002, p.387). The site is also
known from written sources as the Přemyslid administrative
centre Strachotíngrad (“Castrum Strachotín”; Fridrich, ed.,
1904–1907, pp.254–255, no. 289; Boczek, ed., 1836, p.293,
no. 318; Měřínský, 1985, p.207).
The frst archaeological excavations were carried out by
Josef Poulík in 1948 and 1950–1952 (Novotný, 1982b).
Further feld research took place in 1979 by Zdeněk Měřínský
(Měřínský, 1981, p.42). He subsequently returned to the site
in 1986 due to the damaged fortifcation in the northeast
corner of the site, done by construction workers (Himmelová
et. al.
, 1989, p.56). No archaeological excavation has taken
place on the site since then.
Two trial trenches through the fortifcation were made
during the excavations, frst in the eastern part, the second
in the northern part. In both trenches, remains of wooden
beams and strongly burned layers were preserved. In
the northern trench, on the outer side of the fortifcation,
a collapsed layer of horizontal wooden beams on the top of
an intensely-burned layer was found. In the original body of
the rampart, layers of dark and light-coloured clay alternated
with layers of grey-black sand occurred. The individual
layers were probably separated by an organic layer of wicker
or twigs. During the research, fault lines were identifed in
several places, along which there was a shift of the overlying
layers. The construction of the rampart was described as log
chamber-bound, without embedded elements into the subsoil
(Figure 2; Novotný, 1982b).
Inside the fortifed settlement, the dark cultural layer lay
under alluvial clay, gravel, and sand. The thickness of the
complex of alluvial layers ranges from 60–100 cm, but in
some places, it reaches almost 2 m (Měřínský, 1981, p.42;
Novotný, 1982b). The stratigraphy of the site is quite
complicated. In various places, two cultural layers (both
chronologically dated into the same period) were separated
by another alluvial layer. The cultural layer was signifcantly
mixed with carbon, and burnt layers were also found around
and in some archaeological features. There were several
excavated archaeological structures: a stone church with
burial ground with 95 skeletons, a hut, possibly with log
construction, several hearths, sunken pits, stone cumulations
and stakeholes. One of the excavated features was possibly
used for the production of glass rings (Měřínský, 1985,
p.207; Sedláčková and Zapletalová, 2012, p.541).
3. Location of archaeological excavations
The site was excavated using long trial trenches, which were
subsequently expanded in places where more interesting
archaeological situations were captured. Seasons 1948 and
1950 have spatially clear layouts. However, in seasons
1951–1952, spatial references of the excavated felds are