ۺۨ۩ۥۨۢۆ
ﯦۏۆۛҖۦۣۘۛۙғۦۖۡٷۗ۠ۧғٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞ҖҖۃۤۨۨۜ
ẹếẴẼỀẴếỄڷۦۣۚڷ۪ۧۙۗۦۙۧڷ۠ٷۣۢۨۘۘۆ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃۧۨۦۙ۠ٷڷ۠ٷۡٮ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃۣۧۢۨۤۦۗۧۖ۩ۑ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃۧۨۢۦۤۙۦڷ۠ٷۗۦۣۙۡۡӨ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃڷۙۧ۩ڷۣۚڷۧۡۦۙے
ٷ۞ۣۣۣۢۘ۟ۢیڷۣۚڷۨۦۣۚ۠۠ۜڷۙۛۆڷۙۻۣۢۦψڷۙۜۨڷۃۨۧۦٷۊڷۙۜۨڷۣۢڷۙۦۙ۠۠ۙۨۧٷӨ
ۛۢۘۦٷٱڷۺۣۢۜۨۢۆ
ۀڼڽڽڷҒڷۀڼڽڽڷۤۤڷۃڿڽڼھڷۨۧ۩ۛ۩ۆڷҖڷھҢڿڷۙ۩ۧۧٲڷҖڷڼۂڷۙۡ۩ۣ۠۔ڷҖڷۺۨ۩ۥۨۢۆ
ڿڽڼھڷۺ۠۩Ђڷۂڽڷۃۣۙۢ۠ۢڷۘۙۜۧ۠ۖ۩ێڷۃھڽڽғڿڽڼھғۺۥٷҖۀہڽҢڽғڼڽڷۃٲۍө
ҢھڽڽڼڼڿڽﯥہۂҢڿڼڼڼۑٵۨۗٷۦۨۧۖٷۛҖۦۣۘۛۙғۦۖۡٷۗ۠ۧғٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞ҖҖۃۤۨۨۜڷۃۙ۠ۗۨۦٷڷۧۜۨڷۣۨڷ۟ۢۋ
ۃۙ۠ۗۨۦٷڷۧۜۨڷۙۨۗڷۣۨڷۣ۫ٱ
ۃۺۨ۩ۥۨۢۆڷғٷ۞ۣۣۣۢۘ۟ۢیڷۣۚڷۨۦۣۚ۠۠ۜڷۙۛۆڷۙۻۣۢۦψڷۙۜۨڷۃۨۧۦٷۊڷۙۜۨڷۣۢڷۙۦۙ۠۠ۙۨۧٷӨڷғۀڿڽڼھڿڷۛۢۘۦٷٱڷۺۣۢۜۨۢۆ
ھڽڽғڿڽڼھғۺۥٷҖۀہڽҢڽғڼڽۃۣۘڷۀڼڽڽҒۀڼڽڽڷۤۤڷۃڼۂ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃڷۣۧۢۧۧۡۦۙێڷۨۧۙ۩ۥۙې
ڿڽڼھڷ۠۩ЂڷۂڽڷۣۢڷҢڿғھҢھғۀڿھғۂھڽڷۃۧۧۙۦۘۘٷڷێٲڷۃﯦۏۆۛҖۦۣۘۛۙғۦۖۡٷۗ۠ۧғٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞ҖҖۃۤۨۨۜڷۣۡۦۚڷۘۙۘٷۣۣ۠ۢ۫ө
Review article
Castelliere on the Karst: the Bronze Age hillfort
of Monkodonja
Anthony Harding∗
BERNHARD HÄNSEL, KRISTINA MIHOVILIĆ & BIBA
TERŽAN. Monkodonja. Istraživanje protourbanog
naselja brončanog doba Istre, Knjiga 1: Iskopovanje i
nalazi građevina/Forschungen zu einer protourbanen
Siedlung der Bronzezeit Istriens, Teil 1: Die
Grabung und der Baubefund (Monografije i katalozi
25/Monographien und Kataloge 25). 2015. 589
pages, 336 colour and b&w illustrations, 7 fold-out
plans. Pula: Arheološki muzej Istre/Archäologisches
Museum Istriens; 978-953-6153-92-3 hardback 350
kuna (approx. £37 & €47).
archaeology since at least the start of the twentieth
century, when Carlo Marchesetti produced the first
systematic study (Marchesetti 1903). His work
covered Istria (then part of Italy) and the Caput Adriae,
although similar sites occur all along the Dalmatian
coast and into Albania. Few had been excavated more
than cursorily, and none completely with modern
methods. The work presented here thus represents
an extremely important outcome for later prehistoric
archaeology, and not just in the Adriatic area.
This
mammoth
volume, measuring
31 × 24.5cm, and
weighing over 3.5kg,
represents the first
of three promised
parts of the final
publication of the
major excavations
conducted between
1997 and 2008 by a joint Croatian and German team
at the fortified site of Monkodonja in Istria (Croatia),
lying on a low karst hill a few kilometres inland
from Rovinj. The site is one of the best preserved,
and most easily accessible, of the many gradine or
castellieri (hillforts) of the northern Adriatic, dating
to the Bronze and Iron Ages—there are more than
300 in Istria alone. The size of the volume is partly
accounted for by the fact that the entire text is
presented in both Croatian and German, with the
concluding chapter also in Italian and English; the
many illustrations include numerous high-quality
colour photographs, with line drawings in colour and
black-and-white interspersed throughout the text,
and fold-out plans in a pocket at the end.
As the title indicates, most of this first volume is
concerned with the excavation itself and the structures
recovered. Specialist reports cover the botanical
remains (Helmut Kroll), isotope analysis of the
human remains (Claudia Gerling and Douglas Price),
geophysics (Branko Mušić and Igor Medarić) and
dating (Bernhard Weninger). We are taken through a
description of the landscape of Istria and its gradine, a
general description of the site and the excavation, the
main fortified enclosure, the ‘acropolis’, the upper and
lower towns, and the ‘cult cave’ or shaft that lies 50m
to the north-west of the fortification wall. The site is
oval, measuring some 250 × 160m at the widest point
and enclosing around 3ha; the acropolis or central
enclosure measures around 80 × 100m, with walls
surviving up to 3m in height. Two gates, at the west
and north-west, lead into the interior, with another
(unexcavated) to the east; the west gate includes
complex walls, presumably designed to hinder access
by undesirables. The visitor today sees clean limestone
walls (partly reconstructed) and a largely vegetationfree interior, but before excavation, the whole site
was covered in dense macchia scrub—anyone who
has worked in these environments will understand
the difficulties of appreciating the nature and scale of
such sites in their overgrown state.
The gradina sites, of which Monkodonja is such
an outstanding example, have been well known to
There is little topsoil in such hilltop situations,
and, consequently, buildings had their foundations
∗
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Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK
(Email: a.f.harding@exeter.ac.uk)
Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016
90 352 (2016): 1104–1107
doi:10.15184/aqy.2016.112
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Most of the volume consists of a detailed description
of the structures recovered. The main fortification
wall is shown to have had three phases, the
radiocarbon dates for which cover the period c. 1900–
1600 cal BC. A timber construction inside the wall
is presumed to represent a walkway for defensive
purposes; there are also casemate constructions in
certain places. Of the gates, that at the west is
especially complex and also went through several
construction phases, designed to strengthen the
defences; that at the north is slightly less complex but
still remarkable. The authors compare the complexity
of these gateways with those at other sites; the
difficulty of extracting clear plans from the piles
of weathered limestone is plain to see from the
photographs taken before and during the excavation.
Two cist graves were found built into the west gate,
giving a long radiocarbon date range; the authors of
this section provide a suggested sequence of events,
although in truth, the wide date range is not easily
explicable. Stable isotope analyses suggest that the
deceased came from the local area.
A further interesting element of the main defence
wall was the presence of what appears to be chevaux
de frise (anti-cavalry defences) on the slope outside
the north-western area, but the natural weathering
of the limestone could leave some doubt as to
whether this was really an intentionally constructed
defensive feature. The horse cheekpiece from Ciastiei
near Pozzuolo del Friuli is included as possible
confirmation that horses were being used for offensive
purposes in the area during the second millennium
BC (p. 243, fig. 189).
The acropolis, actually a rectangular construction
at the highest point of the hill (but only 1–3m
higher than the adjacent ‘upper town’), and with
two identified gates, also had multiple phases of
construction, yet these could not be closely linked
to the sequence elsewhere. A series of rectangular
houses were identified in the interior, with two major
construction phases. Interestingly, the enclosure wall
of the acropolis produced a winged axe, jammed
into the stones, and a bronze spearhead under
fallen blocks of stone near the southern acropolis
gate. This is highly suggestive, especially as many
slingstones (fig. 94) and bone arrowheads were
found in the space outside the acropolis walls.
Apart from a single photograph, these artefacts are
not presented in this volume. But the implications
for attack and defence are clear; the site would
appear to represent one of the earliest known Bronze
Age examples of a fortified site that underwent an
attack.
Between the fortification wall and the acropolis lie
what are labelled the upper and lower towns. The
former is an almost flat area where the stone has been
removed in recent times and heaped into piles so
that animals can graze. Only close to the acropolis
could buildings be recovered; in this area, a number
of splashes of metal were found, suggesting that this
zone was intended for craft production. Lower down,
the land falls away more steeply and is terraced; one
complete house was excavated, with hearth and other
installations cut into the bedrock. Here, and in some
other places, were found fragments of Brotlaibidole
(oggetti enigmatici for Italian researchers)—the socalled ‘loaf-of-bread idols’ that are quite common
across Central and Southern Europe in the middle
of the second millennium BC, and which represent
some kind of symbolic means of communication.
Finally, the project also investigated the shaft or cave,
which lies to the north-west, outside the gate. Previous
exploration by cavers had shown that it is nearly
30m deep, with two branching chambers towards the
bottom. In it were human and animal bones and
Bronze Age pottery. Radiocarbon dates on the bone
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supported by packed rubble, and postholes survive as
cuts into the limestone. Only in a few special areas was
there any depth of stratigraphy. The cracked limestone
table did, however, serve to provide large quantities
of easily accessible stone. The walls, comprising
the majority of the site’s features, are composed of
limestone blocks; they are heavily weathered and
not how they would have looked in prehistory.
These factors all made excavation more difficult than
would be the case on the ‘earthy’ hilltop sites to
which Northern European archaeologists are more
accustomed. Deciding which stones were in situ
and which had collapsed was obviously difficult at
times. Nevertheless, the team has done an excellent
job of deciphering the lines of walls and buildings;
the fortification walls in the excavated part were
subsequently reconstructed and the postholes marked
with timbers. One unfortunate issue was that the
owner of the eastern part of the site (a modern wall
runs right across the middle) refused permission for
excavation until it was too late for much more than
geophysical survey. This investigation did, however,
determine that the nature of the occupation there was
much the same as in the western part of the site.
In spite of this, the form of the main construction
elements is clear.
Review
showed that some of these had entered the shaft in
the Neolithic; but the Bronze Age material indicates
continuing use. The authors suggest that two natural,
upstanding limestone blocks a few metres in the
direction of the gate represent something akin to
horns, as found in the Cretan Bronze Age. This view
probably follows on from the overall interpretation of
Monkodonja, to which the last chapter of the volume
is devoted.
In terms of dating, while the finds will form the
subject of a second volume, 45 usable radiocarbon
dates were obtained from human and animal
bone samples, most from various contexts in the
fortifications or settlement area, some from a stone
cist and the Mušego tumuli. These are calibrated
using CALIB and CalPal, rather than OxCal with
which many readers will be more familiar. Figure 318
presents a graphical summary of the dates by context,
from which all that can be said is that the main period
of occupation falls in the bracket 1720–1540 cal BC,
with a later phase centred on 1310 cal BC. Some of the
find groups present good inter-sample agreement (for
instance, those from sediments beside the fortification
wall); others are widely spaced. It seems clear that stray
human bones are unlikely to come from the secure
contexts that would be expected in the best analyses
being conducted today; and what is more, no attempt
has been made to model the dates using the now
standard Bayesian methods. Perhaps the next volume
could include a more detailed analysis of the dates?
Resources, we are told, did not permit the acquisition
of more dates, which is quite strange given the scale of
the enterprise; if samples survive, perhaps they could
still be submitted?
In the last chapter, we move on to interpretation.
First, an estimate of population size, which is placed
around 1000 (range 850–1240), depending on how
many inhabitants are allocated per house. Then
social structure: here, standard Anglo-American views
about elites and chiefdoms are dismissed in a few
short sentences; instead, we are told, hypotheses
and interpretations will be based “exclusively on the
archaeological record from the terrain”, rather than
the “arguments of theoretical discussions present in
the classic studies of ‘social archaeology’” (pp. 486
& 546); for instance, those of Tim Earle and Colin
Renfrew. What the interpretation consists of, in fact,
is the idea that there was a tripartite division in society,
corresponding to the tripartite nature of the site,
with ‘elites’ living in the acropolis, craftworkers in
the upper town and the lower classes or slaves in the
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lower town and outside the fort. This interpretation
is clearly speculative and theoretical in nature, no less
so than the Anglophone works regarded as unworthy
of detailed consideration. Apart from the evidence
for craft activities in the upper town, the only specific
evidence for differentiation in house form comes from
the large size of certain structures in the acropolis,
although we also learn from this chapter that murex
shells, amber beads, broken bronze axes and plenty
of animal bones were found across the site, as well
as the Brotlaibidole. The evidence of the cist graves is
confusing, but they are regarded here as important
elements in the overall reconstruction: the resting
places of “outstanding personalities” (pp. 492 & 552)
because of their integration into the main gate. As
the dates appear to show that they preceded the main
phase of fort building, ancestor worship is suggested.
From here we move to wider considerations of the
site’s importance. Monkodonja is seen as one of
four principal sites in the Rovinj region, with a
scatter of large and small sites between them. While
Monkodonja was probably similar to many other
hillforts of Istria, it has been treated as special since
the start of the recent excavations, and its southern
connections have been emphasised. The authors are at
pains to state, however, that they have never called the
site—nor three sherds of pottery found in the casemates of the west wall of the acropolis—‘Mycenaean’;
but given what they have said in previous publications
and lectures, this is quite disingenuous, and neutral
observers might have believed the contrary. Here,
the argument is that the form of a site such as
Monkodonja probably arose from Aegean models;
Aegina is cited several times as a parallel, and the
authors specifically state: “The constructors from
Istria must have learned the special construction
techniques on the actual spot in Greece, or else
the builders with the necessary knowledge could be
the ones who came from the Eastern Mediterranean
to Istria” (pp. 501 & 562). This would apply to
the creation of special tombs as well, including the
Maklavun tomb, described in an earlier publication
as a Kuppelgrab (tholos tomb) of Mycenaean type.
Some will not find these interpretations to their taste,
as they underplay the role of local groups in creating
their own social dynamic.
While one can debate these issues, there is no
question that this publication represents a milestone
in our understanding of second-millennium BC fortbuilding around the Adriatic. Beautifully produced,
and cheap for what it is, my only fear is that
Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016
1106
Review
References
MARCHESETTI, C. 1903. I castellieri preistorichi di
Trieste e della regione Giulia. Atti Museo Civico di
Storia Naturale (Trieste) 4: 1–206.
Review
the binding of this book will not be strong
enough to support its weight with constant use. All
congratulations are due to the authors and their team;
we await the next two volumes with impatience.
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