Przyczynek do poznania przemian osadniczo-kulturowych u schyłku starożytności w rejonie wielokulturowej osady na stanowisku 2 w Jakuszowicach

Since 2001 systematic and comprehensive archaeological research on the settlement microregion around the multi-cultural settlement at Site 2 in Jakuszowice, the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, has been carried out. This settlement has already been known in literature. Unexpectedly abundant results of this activity have brought so far numerous new and valuable data concerning the image of settlement and cultural changes in the area of the central and the lower course of the River Nidzica in various prehistoric and early historic periods. The importance of these discoveries inclined the authors to provide the research in this area with a formal framework, by means of organisation of the “Ponidzie Expedition.” In the course of the afore-mentioned archaeological examinations, carried out in the area of Zagórzyce by the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University, a small multi-cultural site was discovered. It was marked as Site 3. It is situated on the edge of the right bank terrace of the River Zagórzanka, opposite to Site 1 (which has been examined with excavations) and neighbouring Site 2. All three sites form a settlement complex, which existed with varying intensity in the La Tene and the Roman Periods. It is worth underlining that no traces of human activity from the turn of the Early and the Late Roman Periods were discovered at Site 3, while a large settlement of the population of the Przeworsk Culture existed at Site 1 and probably also at Site 2. In the course of cyclical field survey and small scale rescue excavations carried at Site 3 in 2003, remains of settlement from the Neolithic (the Funnel Beaker Culture), the Early Bronze Age (the Trzciniec Culture) and the end of the Roman Period were discovered. The inventory of Feature 1 is related to the last settlement horizon. The feature has a one-time fill, which is implied, e.g., by pottery restoration statistics. An abundant assemblage of fragments of vessels of the Przeworsk Culture was found there. The lion’s share of the assemblage was workshop pottery, made with the use of a potter’s wheel. This pottery was examined in detail from the technological and the stylistic point of view. Some discovered fragments bear traces of secondary firing, which may be interpreted as a result of failed firing. This process in all probability took place in a kiln located within the settlement. It must be said that the afore-mentioned suppositions were confirmed. In the course of excavation research in the 2008 season, a well-preserved feature in the type of a pottery kiln was discovered at Site 3. It was used for firing wheel-made pottery. Coming back to pottery from Feature 1, the ma- jority of analysed forms of vessels are similar to the centre of manufacture of workshop pottery located near Cracow. They display numerous similar features to finds from the settlement in Jakuszowice or the production settlement in Igołomia. on the other hand, in this assemblage there are single elements which may suggest its late chronological position. These include i.a. vessels related to pottery traditions which were widespread in the 4th and 5th c. AD in the central basin of the River Danube. one can mention a pitcher in the style related to pottery of Type Murga or a storage vessel which seems to be stylistically related to both late Sarmatian forms and to so-called Foederatenkeramik, i.e., late provincial Roman pottery, which was manufactured in the Danube border zone. Late chronology of the Przeworsk Culture settlement at Site 3 can be confirmed by one of two Roman coins which were discovered on its surface. It is a small bronze coin (Aes III) of Valentinian I, which was minted in 364-375. The surfaces ofthe item are strongly worn out and it was secondarily remade into a decorative fitting of undefined form. This may imply its long circulation before it got into the ground. It cannot be therefore excluded that the small settlement at Site 3 existed chiefly in the 4th c. It was then abandoned at undefined time after the date of minting of the coin of Valentinian I, perhaps in the early 5th c. AD. It would have therefore been the period when the nearby settlement centre of the Przeworsk Culture in Jakuszowice must have flourished. Materials which were discussed in this paper relate Site 3 in Zagórzyce to commonly accepted views concerning areas of western Lesser Poland’s loess upland. of enormous interest is also the issue concerning the position and the role of the discussed settlement within the conventionally defined Jakuszowice-Zagórzyce settlement micro-region of the Przeworsk Culture. The core of this settlement network forms as late as the end of the Early Roman Period, while the Younger and the Later Roman Periods bring a notable stabilisation with regard to that. Most probably in the 3rd and 4th c. AD a peculiar kind of settlement structures originated in the loess territories upon the Upper River Wisła. It was based on a network of central settlements and accompanying smaller satellite settlements. At the end of the 2nd c. AD, when the rich settlement within the complex of Sites 1 and 2 in Zagórzyce was abandoned, the settlement at Site 2 in Jakuszowice started to fulfil the central role. The settlement at Site 3 in Zagórzyce is the first satellite settlement related to the Jakuszowice centre which was examined with excavations and whose inhabitants occupied themselves with manufacture of wheel-made pottery at the end of Antiquity.