Abstract (english) | In the 2009 campaign, a surface of 575 m2 was excavated in the south-eastern part of Sotin, where a field survey suggested the south-eastern border of Iron Age cemetery. However, the excavations did not confirm this assumption, and it is evident that the Iron Age cemetery stretches even further towards the southeast. There are more Roman incineration graves in the northern part of trial-trench 4 and the central part of trial-trench 5, while more skeleton graves appear in the southern part of trial-trench 5. In the westernmost trial-trench 6, stretching over a surface of 60 m2, and situated at the highest level above the sea, only the Early Iron Age grave 24 was found.
The 2009 excavations expanded the knowledge about spatial distribution of Early Iron Age burials in smaller groups; while older graves are closer to the settlement (graves 2 and 3), younger graves (10 and 23) are south of the settlement. This year’s excavations proved 452 m areal distance between graves belonging to the Dalj group community, and earlier rescue excavations in V. Nazora Street had confirmed that it was bigger, pointing to the settlement’s size, but also the long continuity of burying in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.
Newly discovered are the facts about three horizons of the Roman cemetery, as well as a possible 4th century AD residential part, whose orientation might suggest the direction of the roads. Extraordinary finds of contemporaneous Roman skeleton and incineration graves verify acceptance of different burial rites of the population of the 2nd and the first half of the 3rd centuries AD in Cornacum.
The questions about the relationship between Iron Age settlement and cemetery in the sense of how far away from the settlement they buried their deceased, as well as about the location of the Iron Age cemetery southern and western borders, remain open. A hypothesis is made on burying in smaller groups that possibly followed the principle of family attachment instead of the principle of a place that served for burying all the community members at a certain point of time. Furthermore, there is the burning question of the prevention and conservation of this extraordinarily important site from various historical periods, at which people have resided and built their structures ever since. It is evident that the present village of Sotin was built on a Roman and Iron Age necropolis.
Two-year trial excavations at the site of Srednje Polje (micro locations Vašarište and Jaroši) provided answers to some of the questions raised during the study of the way of life of proto-historical communities in Sotin. Other questions still remain open, and some new ones have arisen with extraordinary information about the attire, as well as the rite of leaving weapons and pieces of meat as grave goods in the Dalj group incineration graves. |