The Latest Research on Bronze Age
Hillforts in Istria

Sebastian Müller  IMS

The Bronze Age is the first epoch in the changeful history of the Mediterranean
region in which larger areas along the shores of the sea and beyond became
interconnected. One of these areas which has been overlooked in most research sofar is Istria at the northern shore of the Adriatic Sea that belongs partly to Italy
and Slovenia, but to the biggest extent to Croatia. Istria is characterized by atypical Mediterranean karst-landscape with numerous smaller hills. It has beenassumed that the peninsula functioned as an interstation in the northern Adria for
traders and seafarers in ancient times who were bound to the seasonality of thesea currents and winds. The Bronze Age research on Istria is in an ambivalentsituation. The peninsula has been extensively surveyed resulting in the discovery of
not less than 436 settlement sites that produced Bronze Age material, but
excavations took place only in a few cases. Therefore, our knowledge of thecharacteristics of the Bronze Age occupation of the peninsula are extremely limited
and merely based on single examples.
The most important and most extensively excavated site at the moment is
Monkodonja in the western part of Istria close to the modern town of Rovinj.

151 2018 지중해지역원 연례학술대회The settlement is located on a hill with still visible Bronze Age remains such as amulti-parted fortification consisting of several circles of dry-stone walls. Comparedto other sites in its vicinity Monkodonja stands out due to its remarkable size of
250 x 160 m enclosed by an outer fortification of approximately 800 m incircumference. The main occupation phase was according to radiocarbon analysis
from 1850/1750 to 1500/1450 BC which correlates to the Middle Bronze Age. The
excavation results and a meticulous artefact analysis revealed that the circles ofdry-stone walls were subdividing the settlement in several functional zones.
Particular areas, for instance along the main fortification, were used as storage,
whilst other parts of the settlement were residential areas. In the outer circles thehouses were small and built in rows. In the center, however, the buildings werebigger and partitioned in several rooms and courtyards. The distribution of finds
such as pottery or faunal remain suggests that the architectonical division reflects
among others the social division of the society. The features and artefacts provide
also indicators for the role of Istria in the wider network of the Mediterranean at
the Bronze Age. Artefacts such as pottery tripods can be directly traced to theeastern

Mediterranean,

forinstance

Cyprus.

Even

more

compellingarearchaeozoological results that show the occurrence of bones from fallow deers(cervus dama) which must have been imported from Greece suggesting a directlink between the Istrian Bronze Age culture and contemporary civilizations in theAegean.
Based on the entirety of the excavation results, it has been assumed that thesettlement of Monkodonja was the residence of a local elite group that controlled
the area around the modern town of Rovinj. Moreover, this community wasconnected to other elite groups in the Mediterranean, particularly those of theAegean area. It seems that the specific planning of the settlement with its
functional and social division resembles the famous Bronze Age palace sites inGreece. Even though the excavation results of Monkodonja represent a significant
increase of knowledge on the situation of the Bronze Age in Istria, a number ofassumptions made by the excavators have to remain speculative or vague due tothe lack of comparable data from other researched settlements. Therefore, athree-year research project funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea
has been launched in order to examine Bronze Age settlement sites in the vicinityof Monkodonja and to get a better understanding of their relation. In the pastyears three settlements on the coast have been researched through survey andsmaller excavations.

152❙ Sebastian Müller ❙The first of these sites is Monbrodo, a small hill at the western coast of thepeninsula in ca. 5 km linear distance from the southern edge of Rovinj. The hill
has an almost oval shape at its base and a height of 30,6 m NN. The hilltop is aflat, slightly sloping plateau of ca. 5500 square meter with a drop-shaped outline.
Around one third of the hill is on the western flank bordered by the Adriatic Sea.
Aerial photographs of the hill show differences in the vegetation that suggest theexistence of circular walls which was proven to be correct through surveys of thesite that also revealed the existence of artificial terraces and of several radial wallsections. Based upon the research of the last years it turned out that the upper
three circular walls can be connected to the prehistoric occupation, which dates in
its oldest layer to the Bronze Age. Through comparison of artefacts, mainly pottery
types, it is clear that the Bronze Age occupation of Monbrodo was at least partly
synchronous with the settlement on Monkodonja. Although Monbrodo is not as
big as Monkodonja, which could be taken as argument for the theory that
Monbrodo was a satellite settlement of Monkodonja, the existence of a strong
fortification wall emphasizes the independence of the site. The second settlementthat has been examined in the project is Monvi which is similar to Monbrodo
directly located at the shore of the Adriatic Sea. The distance between Monvi andMonbrodo is around 5 km and there is a direct line of sight between both placesacross the sea. Despite larger destructions of the archaeological layers on top of
the hill due to modern construction work, it has been confirmed that theprehistoric settlement had three circular walls. Although the walls have been reusedin modern times, their bases that consist of large and heavy limestone blocks,
suggest a construction in the Bronze Age. Through excavation on the edge of oneof these dry-stone walls, it was possible to observe an occupation layer withdislocated Bronze Age pottery which can be parallelized with the finds fromMonkodonja and Monvi.
The last settlement site, just recently surveyed and excavated, is the hill of Muja
that is located close to the Adriatic Sea around 2.5 km southeast of Rovinj. Muja
has just one visible dry-stone wall that consists of several phases and it ischaracterized by a very even plateau. It is one of the smaller examples of a Bronze
Age hillfort, but the finds retrieved from a thin occupation layer next to the wall
suggest that Muja was settled at the same time as the other three mentioned sites.
The results of the last three years’ research demonstrate that Bronze Agesettlements in Istria, independently from their actual size, were fortified with atleast one dry-stone wall. Although the erection of these walls is not a very

153 2018 지중해지역원 연례학술대회

complicated process, their presence seems to contradict in some way the theory
that Monkodonja was the central site that wielded its power over the region. It
might be possible, however, that not all walls were intended as real fortifications,since there are a number of arguments that seem to hint to a symbolic meaning.
Furthermore, other functions for the walls cannot be excluded at the current stageof research.
Although the excavation results of the project are extremely promising and ahuge step forward to a better understanding of the settlement system in the region
around Rovinj, it is clear that most of the known 436 locations cannot be
examined in this way. In order to understand the available data in a better way
and to gain more insights into the organization and function of the settlement
system in the entire peninsula, a GIS based spatial analysis provides a number of
useful insights. The distribution map of the Bronze Age settlements in Istria shows
already an uneven distribution with a huge amount of sites in the region of themodern towns of Rovinj and Bale. Generally, this result could be a reflection of
the real situation during the Bronze Age, but it needs to be taken into accountthat higher archaeological activities in this region can lead to a larger number ofknown sites. In this particular case both reasons might be true, whereas the highdensity of sites is explainable with the fertile soil in this area which played asignificant role for the Bronze Age settlers. A heat map of the site distribution
underlines the existence of particular areas with a high settlement density. Thismap also demonstrates that there are no isolated settlement areas in Istria. Allplaces were more or less connected with each other.
Based upon the distribution of sites the area can be partitioned in voronoi orThiessen-polygons. These polygons provide insights on the size of the possible
catchment area for each settlement. In the densely populated part in the west ofIstria the smallest cells are not larger than 2 square kilometers which might be,
however, enough for producing the necessary food supplies for the settlement.
The viewshed and intervisibility analysis demonstrates the existence of distinct
communication areas in Istria, but again without showing completely separatedregions. If the areas with a high connection were also closer in terms of cultural
affiliation etc. is a question that needs to be answered in future research projects.

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