POTTERY vessels, bronze earrings, bracelets, arrowheads and iron knives belonging to a period of culture more than five thousand years old have recently been unearthed by the Joint Central European Expedition of the University Museum and the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, according to word just received from Dr. Vladimir J. Fewkes, field director of the Expedition.
“The second summer’s work of the Expedition,” Dr. Fewkes writes, “has produced a number of interesting and important finds. In the course of our excavations at Lazavice, southwest of Prague, in Czecho-Slovakia we have uncovered objects that point to Slavic burials of the late Bronze and early Iron Age. In addition to this we have carried on extensive digging at Homolka, northwest of Prague where the finds reveal a settlement of people belonging to the so-called Nordic phase of the Eneolithic or earliest Bronze Age period, five thousand years ago. When the whole site has been completely dug, we shall have the credit of having excavated a primitive Nordic settlement for the first time in the history of European Archaeology. The Homolka site is a steep, rounded hill connected by a saddle hack to a long ridge and as many as one hundred and forty pits have been discovered in the course of complete excavation of the site. These pits were of many sorts such as house pits, storage and refuse pits, and others, the use of which has not yet been determined. In addition to the Eneolithic objects, types of very primitive pottery have come to light which indicate that the site was possibly occupied over a long period or perhaps that in this region a number of different cultures met and later merged into one.
In addition to this, extensive digging has been carried on at Chrastany, west of Prague, where objects representative of Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures were found. The material recovered was most important, including some beautiful Bronze Age pottery and a perforated hoe of the same period.
The whole Central European region is archaeologically very important and as yet little understood, and when the finds of the Expedition have been studied and the results published no little light will be thrown on the prehistory of man in Europe.”
Dr. Fewkes will return early in December to prepare at the Museum an exhibition of his finds.