DEPOT ŽELEZNÝCH NÁSTROJOV Z DOBY LATÉNSKEJ ZO ZEMIANSKEHO PODHRADIA-MARTÁKOVEJ SKALY

During a survey of the fortified settlement of Lužice culture in position Hradiská, which was also settled in the La Tène Period, a smaller deposit of iron tools was found at the foot of one of the cliffs of a nearby Late La Tène fort at Martáková skala in 1987. The deposit consisted of a massive iron axe with rectangular socket, a big socketed chisel and a knife with tapering tang. Among La Tène hoards all three objects belong to the most frequent and functionally relatively universal tool types. The axe and chisel were used mainly in wood logging and woodworking; the knife was a versatile tool mostly for domestic use or as a weapon in hunting and fighting. The analysis of the deposit inventory showed that the objects had been produced and buried in the Late La Tène period, at the earliest around the turn of the two last centuries BC (level LTD 1). Thus they belong to the time horizon in which the custom of burying iron tools deposits and the reasons for doing so are the most notable, and concrete acts of such burials are the most numerous. The hoard might also have had a votive character, although find circumstances rather signal accidental and temporary abandonment of the objects. Apart from the referred to hill-forts the article mentions sites in neighbouring villages of Bošáca (the hill-fort is less marked and the character of its settlement less clear) and Trenčianske Bohuslavice (oppidum), whose location and chronological classification are comparable. The article also states an absence of lowland agricultural settlements in the settlement structure of the micro region of Bošácka and Moravskolieskovská valleys.