Pavlina Kalabkova

Abstract The first European settlements accompanied by crop and livestock farming occurred approximately 7500 years ago. In this agrarian society, wood was one of the most important raw materials, most notably for construction, but only a little is known about wood use and woodworking technology. Hence, archaeological wooden finds are of particular importance. Dendroarchaeological studies combine the analysis of external and internal characteristics of archaeological wood: traces of tools on the wooden surfaces and the shape of timbers provide information about woodworking techniques, the tree rings allow dendrochronological dating and provide a paleoecological archive. In 2015 and 2016, two water wells with wooden linings from the Early Neolithic Period were discovered in the Czech Republic close to the towns of Velim (Bohemia) and Unicov (Moravia). The timbers were excellently preserved under waterlogged conditions. Here, we present a dendroarchaeological study including tree-ring and woodworking analyses. Furthermore, we consider former forest species composition. Overall, 15 lumbers from both wells were successfully dated by dendrochronology. The oaks used for the wells from Velim and Unicov were felled in 5196/5195 BCE and 5093–5085 BCE, respectively. Additionally, the taxa of 1859 wooden fragments, such as charcoals, branches and chips, were wood anatomically identified. The well lining from Velim with a hollowed tree trunk is already known from other Central European locations. In contrast, the construction from Unicov is unique for this period. Until now, the advanced construction design formed by four corner posts with longitudinal grooves and inserted horizontal planks was only known several thousands years later. The Early Neolithic wells from Unicov and Velim are the oldest archaeological discoveries of wooden artefacts in the Czech Republic that have been dendrochronologically dated. The tree-ring width series extend the Czech oak tree-ring width chronology more than 300 years into the past.

Some of the most extraordinary finds from the Early Neolithic period are wooden wells. These constructions permit unusual insights into Neolithic settlements, their subsistence and environment, as well as into the surrounding landscape. A recent excavation of a Neo lithic settlement at Uničov in central Moravia, Czech Republic, yielded the discovery of a wooden well with a sediment infill from the beginning of the Neolithic period and allowed to study an array of topics by a multi-proxy approach using a set of complementary methods. Our study of the wooden lining demonstrates the carpeting skills of the first farmers, required also for building so-called ‘longhouses’. By comparing dendrochronological and radiocarbon dating, we estimated the time span of the well’s existence. The construction was used repeatedly over a longer time and was finally filled in intentionally. Studies of the well’s infill shed light on its usage and decline, providing a great proxy for the study of living ...

Water wells are the most unique finds from the Early Neolithic period in Central Europe. These features provide unusual insight into societies and their settlements, as well as into the water management process. This article presents the updated results of material analyses and excavations of Early Neolithic wells at Mohelnice, Brno-Bohunice and Uničov in Moravia, Czech Republic. We studied the possibilities of the spatial and temporal distribution of wells on the example of these settlements. The social relation between the large longhouses and the wells in their immediate neighbourhood has not been proven. On the contrary, they could have been communal wells, serving the inhabitants of the entire settlement. Moreover, it turned out that in the Moravian region, geomorphological conditions were a key factor for choosing the location to build a well. By comparing radiocarbon dates, we estimated the time span of the existence of wells with respect to each other and to the settlements....

At the Jordanov Culture settlement in Olomouc-Slavonín, eight ground plans of buildings, separate post holes, and settlement features of various shapes and functions (storage pits, clay pits, features with evidence of the production of chipped industrial) have been uncovered so far. Several human burials were also discovered in the settlement features. The first of 2008 (in feature 44, the joint funeral of a woman and child in a stretched position on their backs) was subsequently included in the Baalber phase of Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB) (KALÁBEK – ŠÍN 2018, 54) thanks to the C14 dating, but others of 2016 (in feature 179, burial of the individual in a crouched position) and 2018 (in feature 360, scattered parts of the human skeleton at the bottom of the settlement pit) are, according to the findings in the infill of the settlement features, still dated to JK (KALÁBEK – ŠÍN 2018, 54–56). Whole ground plans of the buildings were not preserved. We assume that these were structures of a slightly trapezoidal floor plan of at least 14 m in length and about 5 m in width. The interior of the houses included a basement-
recessed cellars storage pits. Whether they were two-part structures,
of which only half with foundation trenches are preserved, as assumed by M. Šmíd (ŠMÍD 2011), has unfortunately not yet been documented even in Olomouc-Slavonín.

The territory of Moravia, which is situated in the Carpathian Foredeep and bordered on the east by the Carpathians and on the west by the Bohemian Massif, created a natural corridor between the Middle Danube region in the south and the area adjacent to the Central European Plain in the north. The zone of frontier mountains did not represent any serious obstacle in this regard. This condition is reflected in the cultural diversity of this territory, which can be observed during almost the whole of prehistoric times when the local cultural environment was part of larger cultural complexes. The openness of this area at the same time also played a very important intermediary role between not only Transdanubia and the afore-mentioned Central European Plain, but also the Carpathian Basin in the SE and the Elbeland and Bohemian Basin in the NW. The same was also the case with the Early Eneolithic, whose latest developmental phase involved the Baden cultural complex. Even though Moravia was not part of its centre of formation and also played rather an intermediary role in this period of prehistoric times, due to a totally different cultural environment represented in most of its territory by the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB), it contributed to a fairly surprising variability of ceramic production of a local facies of the earliest phase of the Baden culture – the so-called Boleráz. A specific feature of Central Moravia was represented by the barrow fields, including inhumation burials and thereafter exclusively cremations, whose period of existence faded out in the early classical Baden phase (Baden II). Analogies to assemblages of the classical as well as post-classical phases of the Baden in Moravia are found mainly in the Lower Austrian Ossarn group, and not in the easterly situated areas of the Middle Danube region. This fact most probably played an important role in the formation of the Late Eneolithic Bošáca group in the east and the Mödling-Zöbing-Jevišovice group in the west.

In autumn 2015, a Neolithic Linear Pottery settlement was discovered during construction of an industrial hall in Uničov. 558 settlement features were examined on the area of 0.7 ha (Fig.1). Besides common
settlement features such as storage and construction pits, irregular multiple pits, a kiln, and postholes found within twelve ground plans of aboveground structures, a well with a preserved wooden groove structure (feature 184) was uncovered. It proved to be an example of the earliest use of this constructing method in our prehistory. The
high level of this piece of carpentry and the proximity of Neolithic long houses may indicate new, so far unconsidered, ways of Neolithic building techniques which could have been used during construction of wells as
well as long Neolithic houses, particularly along their perimeters.
The well had an oval layout with dimensions of 5.8m x 5.5m and northeast-southwest orientation (Fig.2). After about one meter, the originally funnel mouth of the pit changed into almost vertical walls tracked to the depth of 2 meters. The full depth of the well was recorded at the level of gravel in the depth of 3.5m (Fig.3). The well was filled with several layers (300, 302, 315 and 316) and yielded 132 pieces of pottery, animal bones, daub, wooden and plant fragments, moss, insects as well as charred parts of plants. Yet, the most significant was the discovery of a wooden structure in the centre of the well in the depth of 3.5m. The structure comprised of four stakes arranged in a square with one side having 0.9m-1m in length. Each stake had two grooves in which boards
were placed diagonally (Fig.4). The wood was made of oak. The stakes as well as boards were preserved up to 1.9m of depth. The four corner stakes (704–707) were taken out (704–707) together with 30 rectangular boards (708 – 737). The boards were pointed so as to fit well into the grooves. The board dimensions were as follows: 0.78m-0.85m × 0.10-0.25m×0.04m-0.07m. The diameter of stakes varied between 0.12 and 0.18 m, the width of the grooves between 0.04m and 0.05m and their depth between 0.035m and 0.045m. Several vertical bars were
found within the structure (700–703). Three boards (711, 712 and 714) lay against one of them (702), the right edges of which having fallen down from the groove of stake 705. It is a direct evidence of repairs of the well performed during its use (Fig.5). Following a dendrochronological analysis (Table 1) and radiocarbon dating, the
well was reliably dated back to 5,104 BC (Fig.5).
On the territory of the Czech Republic, Neolithic wells have been discovered on six sites only: Brno–Bohunice, Mohelnice, Most, Ostrov, Uničov and Velim (Fig. 6). Four of them contained a wooden structure which, however, differed from each other. In Mohelnice it was a timbered beam structure, in Uničov and Ostrov a groove structure, and in Velim a hollow tree trunk, reinforced on the outer side with four stakes, was used. All these structures indicated well-managed treatment of wood and high crafting skills of their makers. It is likely that this art
could have been found mainly on the structures of the aboveground houses and particularly their long houses.
The groove structure of house walls in Uničov was used as a model situation. It was a house 01 with dimensions of 2mx7.4m and northnortheast-southsouthwest orientation. This structure was selected for the noticeable similarity of its dimensions between posts in its perimeter and the dimensions of walls of the structure found in the
well. Another reason were only few finds of daub with fingerprints in the house postholes from the anticipated wall structure – wattle wall covered with daub. The individual wooden elements taken out from the well were made from trunks of different sizes (Ø 0.12m–0.72m) and age (20–156 yrs). The length of the boards varied between 0.78m and 0.85m. 56 posts and not more than 56 sections of walls (excluding openings for doors and windows) were needed to build the perimeter of house 01 (structure 01). Assuming that the perimeter posts had the
diameter of 20cm – 30cm and their grooves had about 5 cm in depth, the distance between them varied between 0.55m and 2.4m. Most frequently it varied between 0.72m and 1.33m (38x) which corresponded with the dimensions of the boards found in the well. Shorter distances found between the posts (0.55m and 0.61m) could have been part of the house entrance or it could have been a result of replacing a rotten post with a new piece.
Therefore, to build the perimeter walls, about 130 m², i.e. 580 – 1,100 pieces of boards was needed together with 49 2.5m-long posts with the diameter between 0.2m and 0.30m. The inner supporting structure comprised of 16 posts within the main axis with the assumed length of 6.2m and 34 posts with the length of 4.5m, which corresponded to about 50 – 70 trunks. The roofing required 390 m² of material such as shingle or thatch. Should the house had had wooden flooring, its area could have reached 197 m2. To tighten and insulate gaps in the wall, daub and possibly moss – due to finds in the well infill – were used. Besides natural forks and binding with ropes – as it is usually presented in drawings – the individual pieces of the structure could have been joined by means of standard woodworking joints such as beam cuts or casing with pins. It could have been well used for joining the roof with the house or to construct doors and windows. Therefore, the Neolithic people in Uničov had the technical means to build all-wooden houses with walls from boards fixed in groove structures of perimeter posts and with
timbered structural parts of the roof.
Layouts similar to that of house 01 in Uničov have been known from other Neolithic sites in central and northern Moravia. The Archaeological Centre of Olomouc itself have identified 112 of them so far (Bohuslávky
(1997, 2005), Bravantice (2006), Hulín–Pravčice 2 (2007), Loučka (1997, 2005), Pravčice 2 (2015), Přáslavice–Kocourovec (1994), Přerov–Předmostí 5 (2017) and Uničov (2015)). At least half of them have similar distances between perimeter posts as the model structure of house 01 in Uničov. In total, 56 house with groove structure of
perimeter walls could have been built on site Bohuslávky (23 houses), Bravantice (2 houses), Hulín–Pravčice 2 (13 houses), Loučka (2 houses), Přáslavice–Kocourovec (6 houses), Přerov–Předmostí 5 (1 house) and Uničov (9 houses). Therefore, it can be assumed that the groove-and-board structure of the house walls could have beenused as alternatives to wattle houses covered with daub.

In the 4th millennium BC Moravia also saw the occurrence of intentional deposits of ceramic vessels – ceramic hoards. These are usually interpreted as votive offerings (sacrifice, votum) and associated with the then fertility and harvest rites, or with drinking rituals and the related libation ceremonies or oath drinks. This explicit interpretation, however, can be misleading. Some find contexts enable to consider these finds as possible grave goods (inclusive of cenotaphs) or only better preserved inventory of ordinary settlement pits. As examples the selected assemblages from Božice and Hnanice near Znojmo, Kostelec na Hané, Olomouc and Prostějov are named.