Polada stilt settlement
Coordinates: 45 ° 27 ′ 33.2 ″ N , 10 ° 30 ′ 17.5 ″ E
The pile dwelling settlement of Polada ( Italian Palafitta di Polada ) was a Bronze Age settlement on stilts on Lake Polada in the Italian municipality of Lonato del Garda . It is an associated station of the 111 prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps , which were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage in 2011. The remains of the settlement were found about 3 km southwest of Lake Garda and about 1 km east of Lonato del Garda. The Polada culture is named after this site .
History and exploration
The pile dwelling settlement of Polada was founded around 2100 BC. Built during the Early Bronze Age (FBZ IA) on the small lake in the moraine landscape south of Lake Garda. At the end of FBZ IA or the beginning of FBZ IB it became around 1800 BC. Destroyed by fire. At some point a drainage channel was dug in the north of the lake and the Polada was partially drained. In the east, in the area where the pile dwelling settlement used to be, a peninsula was created. Over the centuries, peat was deposited in the shallow water .
Around 1870, the owner of the Polada decided to mine the peat for fuel. He had another drainage canal built and drained the bog . A thin layer of peat had formed on the peninsula, which was obviously flooded at times. When they were dismantled in 1872, piles and other remains of the settlement were discovered. When Giovanni Rambotti heard of the find, he examined the site and asked the workers to hand over all finds to him. In 1875 Rambotti had amassed a considerable collection of Bronze Age artifacts, which he had exhibited in the museum in Brescia that same year . After Rambotti's death, the finds came to the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini" in Rome .
In 1956 and 1957, the scientists Ottavio Cornaggia Castiglioni and Ferdinando Toffoletto carried out systematic excavations in Polada. All other finds are in the Museo civico archeologico "Giovanni Rambotti" in Desenzano del Garda .
description
Lake Polada had a west-east extension of about 350 m and a north-south extension of about 250 m. The pile-dwelling settlement was on the eastern bank, where the peninsula was later created. The remains of piers found show that the settlement had the shape of an oblong or elongated parallelogram and measured 60 m from west to east and 20 m from north to south. Rambotti suspected that the water under the settlement was about 2.50 to 3 m deep. Two rows of pillars, which ran parallel to the east bank at a distance of about 0.60 m, belonged to a 90 m long walkway.
A flat canoe 7.60 m long and 0.76 m wide was found near the settlement. Remains of three fastenings for the straps could still be found on both sides . Another small canoe came out by the bank by the jetty.
Finds
About 150 complete clay pots and numerous pottery shards were found. Larger vessels were made from coarse clay. Smaller vessels were often made of fine, black, homogeneous clay and were decorated with dots and lines. There was a great variety of shapes such as jugs with two and four handles, bowls, perforated bowls, cups, bowls, plates and platters. In addition, 140 decorated and undecorated spindle whorls , some clay weights and three so-called bread loafs made of terracotta were found.
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A few small and one large sandstone polishing stone, 40 hammer stones, 6 shoe last wedges , three arm protection plates made of polished stone, more than 300 arrowheads and almost 100 flint blades were found from stone. Bones had been used to make daggers , dagger handles, drills, chisels, needles, and small pierced objects. Seven pierced hammer heads were made from deer antlers . The bronze objects were a dagger with bone handle and three sidebar hatchets from Terra Mare type . The jewelry found consisted of three pierced buttons made of marble and various other marble buttons, eight rings decorated with small rings, a pierced shell and pierced teeth of a dog, wolf, bear and wild boar.
Another find was a sickle made from a crooked branch. Flint blades were used as the cutting edge, glued into a groove with bitumen , of which two blades were still attached. Parts of other sickles were also found, but the flint blades were no longer attached. A six-legged chair was carved out of one piece. In addition to numerous animal bones, part of a human skull was found. As the bones found show, people kept cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs and cats as pets and hunted wild boars, deer and roe deer.
literature
- Robert Munro : The Lake-Dwellings of Europe. Being the Rhind Lectures in Archeology for 1888 , London, Paris, Melbourne 1890, pp. 232–238 ( online )
Web links
- Escursione la Cultura della Polada. (Italian)
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert Munro: The Lake Dwellings of Europe. Being the Rhind Lectures in Archeology for 1888 , London, Paris, Melbourne 1890, p. 238
- ↑ Ottavio Cornaggia Castiglioni, Ferdinando Toffoletto: Il bacino lacustre della Polada e il suo insediamento preistorico in Natura , Volume 49, Part 2, pp. 54-70
- ^ Robert Munro: The Lake Dwellings of Europe. Being the Rhind Lectures in Archeology for 1888 , London, Paris, Melbourne 1890, p. 232
- ↑ Adalberto Piccoli, Renato Laffranchini: Enigma. An ancient European interaction: the Enigmatic Tablets. , Cavriana 2011, ISBN 978 88 90795 5 0 3 , p. 22
- ^ Robert Munro: The Lake Dwellings of Europe. Being the Rhind Lectures in Archeology for 1888 , London, Paris, Melbourne 1890, pp. 233-238