Oberleiserberg - a late antique hilltop settlement
Oberleiserberg - a late antique hilltop settlement
Disciplines
History, Archaeology (100%)
Keywords
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Höhensiedlung,
Spätantike,
Herrschaftszentrum,
Völkerwanderungszeit,
Akkulturation,
Wirtschaft
The Oberleiserberg dominates the landscape because of its 457 meters in altitude and is located in the Lower Austrian Weinviertel in the center of the Leiser Mountains, about forty kilometers north of Vienna, close to the town of Ernstbrunn. It belongs to the most famous and most important sites in the field of Austrian Early Medieval Age research. It has been excavated systematically for years and the ensuing results have provided relevant contributionser to the Roman Emperor era and the Migration Period in the middle Danubian area. Through evidence of Roman buildungs and settlement structures, one recognized already at the beginning of the twentieth century that the Oberleiserberg was a neural point within the framework of Roman-German struggles and relationships. For a long time, the Oberleiserberg was considered a Roman Station in the scientific literature and a military base during the time of the Marcommanian wars. However, research during the last years revealed that the Oberleiserberg, because of its standing as a late antique hilltop settlement with representative farms, is a manorial center of the Migration Period in the middle Danubian area. The point and goal of the project is the late antique hilltop settlement on the Oberleiserberg. Through this research on the mountain, which will include historical sources, the type and function of the hilltop settlement, the structure and inner construction of the hilltop settlement, the function and inner structure of the buildings, chronology, economic foundations of the hilltop settlement, processes of acculturation, ethnic and social structures of the late antiquity society on the Oberleiserberg will be examined. The settlement area "southeast" on the Oberleiserberg, where more representative buildings and trade buildings are expected, was chosen as the research focus of the following project. Through this investigation important hints for the economic foundations of the settlement are expected.
Hilltop settlements are a characteristic appearance in the landscape of northern Lower Austria, south-western Slovakia, Moravia and Bohemia in the first half of the 5th century. The object of the project is the Late Antique hilltop settlement on the plateau of the Oberleiserberg; here, a manor house at the north-western edge of the plateau, and remains of a settlement with postpad buildings and earthfast post constructions, as well as ovens to the east of the manor house have been brought to light. Between the years 2007 and 2009, in the framework of the FWF-Project P20044-G02, the settlement area "south-east" and the so-called Valentinian watchtower near the eastern gate of the circular ramparts were archaeologically investigated. It was possible to identify two settlement phases: one dating to the first half of the 5th century, and a second phase around the mid- to the second half of the 5th century. Earthfast post buildings set into the slope, ovens and pits belong to the first phase of settlement, the beginning of which is still not clear. Loom weights and broken fragments of querns from the backfill of the exposed earthfast post building indicate that the production of textiles and foodstuffs occurred here. The ovens consist of a stoking pit and a pit with burned clay slabs, or only of a pit with burned oven slabs. They are set into the rock or the grown-over ground, and can be identified as baking ovens. Since no datable finds have been retrieved from the backfill of the ovens, their chronological classification is not precisely clear. Around the mid-5th century, the entire settlement area was levelled and newly organised. Characteristic for this phase are representative wooden postpad buildings in a variety of architectonic forms with foundation beams in the foundation trenches, upper floors, and open vestibules. One of the postpad buildings is 10.75 m wide and more than 12 m long, with foundation trenches up to 1.20 m deep in the interior and lateral annexes, and was probably used as a prestigious residential building. Here, two finds with early Christian motifs were discovered: a fragment of broken tile with a crux ansata, and a bronze, rhomboid-form amulet ornamented with a cross. These could reflect the religious views of the inhabitants of the postpad building, and indicate that the Oberleiserberg played an important role in the conversion of the "gentes" along the middle Danube. The so-called "Valentinian" watchtower was already investigated in 1929 by H. Mitscha-Märheim, and interpreted at that time as a late Roman guard tower. The excavations of 2007 revealed a 3 x 2 m chapel of the early modern period. According to historical accounts of 1839, this was erected on the exterior edge of the plateau of the Oberleiserberg as a station of the Medieval and early modern penance route.
- Universität Wien - 100%