Chronologia
Authors: Wadyl Sławomir , Rembisz-Lubiejewska Anna 
Published: December 2022

Attempts to establish the chronology of the stronghold had already been made on the strength of the 19th-century excavations. At the time it was deemed to have been built during the migration period, and last used in the Middle Ages. Romuald Odoj thought differently. He dated its origins to the 6th–7th century and believed that it had remained in use well into the early medieval period, possibly with a second usage phase during the 9th–11th centuries. In an article summarising the results of his excavations, he revised the chronology of the stronghold to the 6th–8th centuries (Odoj 1968, 136). The fact that there is no mention of the existence of an earlier settlement horizon is very surprising. Excavation revealed an undoubtedly earlier phase of settlement. This phase was identified from the remains of domestic features and parts of the settlement’s defences. These were discovered on the slope facing the lake and at the foot of the stronghold. Two sections of palisade, their chronology confirmed by C14 dating, were uncovered at the edge of the plateau. VII.1.2. Phase 2 The second phase of settlement was represented by residential and domestic features, as well as structural parts of the stronghold’s defences. Most of the features excavated on the plateau came from this phase, as did the remains of a rampart, four ditches, and a palisade at the perimeter of the plateau, facing the lake. This phase is attributable to the beginning of the early medieval period, as evinced by both comparative analysis and the results of radiocarbon dating. Comparative analysis of the excavated material led to the identification of Stone Age artefacts comprising a flintwork assemblage and a stone axehead. They provide evidence of the earliest phase of occupation at Okrągła Góra. Most of the flint items are splintered pieces, and two bear marks which indicate that they were removed from opposed-platform cores. These can be linked to Epipalaeolithic communities, whilst all of the other flintwork lacks any distinctive characteristics that would help date it more precisely, hence it has been broadly attributed to the Stone Age. VII.2.2. Early Iron Age Analysis of reconstructed vessel forms and their decoration shows that the pottery assemblage can be classified to Mirosław Hoffmann’s stylistic groups II, III and IV, produced during the transitional Lusatian-West Baltic phase, dating from the cusp of period VI of the Bronze Age and the Hallstatt D period to the beginning of the early pre-Roman period. The most numerously represented is group III, which points to the steady development of settlement during the early Iron Age. Other finds associated with West Baltic Barrow culture settlement include a few artefacts made of bronze, clay, bone and stone, whose dating cannot be narrowed down. Over 98% of the pottery from Pasym is classified as either kitchenware (GT1) or tableware (GT2). Very few of the vessels were produced using a potter’s wheel. The co-occurrence of both ceramic traditions is a feature of pottery from the first phases of the early medieval period in the Masurian Lakeland. Neither type of pottery is a particularly good indicator of date; however, the non-ceramic dating indicators found with both of these very large pottery assemblages, as well as C14 analysis, place them between the end of the 7th century and the 9th century. The non-ceramic chronologically diagnostic finds provide a more reliable source of evidence for the date of this horizon. The stronghold’s origins go back to the latter half, or possibly the end, of the 7th century. Two fibulae of the Wólka Prusinowska type, a cruciform bronze brooch, a bracelet with hook and eye terminals and pendants of trapezoidal and diamond shape can all be dated to this period. A particularly valuable discovery was that of a Sasanian drachma of Khosrow II. Arabian coins began to appear in the Baltic area in the latter half of the 8th century. The fact that this coin survives in fragmentary form and has cut marks on it shows that it did not reach this region before the end of the 8th/early 9th century. Other reliable indicators of date include antler combs, a spur of the Birka/Čaplin/Menzlin type, a hooked clasp and conical antler sleeves. The vast majority of these finds point to the stronghold having been used most intensively during the 8th–9th centuries. Eighteen samples taken both from the fill of houses and from ditch deposits were selected for C14 analysis. The results fall into two distinct groups that are consistent with two major settlement phases at Okrągła Góra. The first represents the early Iron Age horizon. The calibrated dates indicate that this settlement phase lasted from 750 BC to AD 100. The second group comprises a series of 10 dates, all within the latter half of the 1st millennium AD. The dated samples came from features excavated on the stronghold plateau and from ditch fills. They produced a cluster of earlier dates (AD 700–850) and another cluster representing a slightly later date range (AD 850–1000).