The Deserted Village in the 'V Žáku' Locality in Klánovice Forest (Prague). On the Issues of Systematic Settlement Forms
Abstract
The article deals with the outcomes of a geodetic-topographical survey of the deserted medieval village in the 'V Žáku' locality in Klánovice Forest on the territory of the Capital City of Prague. It is a locality lying in an enclave of agriculturally unfavourable soil, namely in the vicinity of the very fertile River Elbe Basin.
The relicts of the village have been preserved in a unique way, because it is still possible to identify not only distinctive relicts of the individual residential buildings and outbuildings but also the low walls separating the individual yard plots, or even internal low walls dividing the actual yard buildings from the garden. The resulting geodetic plan of the relicts therefore makes it possible to develop a clear idea of the internal subdivision of the village into plots, the sizes and buildings of the yards of the individual homesteads.
What was documented were the relicts of 21 to 24 homesteads, which in two opposite lines surrounded the villagegreen area (470 x 91 m), through whose centre a brook flowed. The great differences between the courtyards of the individual homesteads indicate a distinct social-economic differentiation.
In the complex of the deserted village, archaeological excavations have not yet been conducted, and all of the knowledge therefore relies exclusively on non-invasive archaeological methods. The dating of the relicts to the Late Middle Ages is only indirect and proceeds primarily from the fact that at least since the sixteenth century a forest has spread out on the site of the deserted village.