Human activity traces from shelter in Smoleń III (central part of Kraków-Częstochowa Upland) from the last centuries of Antiquity

Abstrakt

This paper presents a number of finds dated to the Late Antiquity, from the cave site Shelter in Smoleń III, Pilica comm., Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. The objects are connected with one of several cultural episodes that were observed on the site. In the group of finds there are: a ceramic vessel dated to younger Pre-Roman period; animal bone remains possibly of a ritual character, which according to radiocarbon dating have been deposited around the beginning of the 2nd century BC; and a metal anchor-shaped key of a very wide potential dating – from the 2nd century BC till the Early Middle Ages. The finds have undergone the following analyses: descriptive, technological, comparative, taphonomical, radiocarbon dating and chromatographic. The study permits to look in a new way at the seemingly poor materials of the Late Antiquity uncovered in caves of the Polish Jura chain, and the role of often overlooked small rock shelters of that time