Abstract
We aim to stress out the significance of the farms as the individual socio-economic units that are spatially represented in a single household type settlements that were delimited by an enclosure. For this settlement forms we use the term "farm-type settlements" in reference to their apparently prevailing rural function.
As observed in northern Gaul (fermes indigènes) or southern Germany (viereckschanzen) where these types of settlements are in a regular occurrence, differences between individual sites in terms of status, subsistence strategies and specialised production point out to the complex socio-economic structure. In Bohemia, rare occurrence of the single enclosed farms compared to multi-household villages that represented typical form of settlements in this area points out to differences in historical development that was apparently impacted by local settlement traditions.
Also, unlike the enclosed units at the agglomerations where their inner layouts developed rather organically over the longer periods of occupation, the country enclosures are characterised by firm regularities in their spatial organisation, landscape settings as well as usually short-term occupation. Fragmentary archaeological evidence prevented deeper knowledge of these types of settlements that were thus long regarded in a traditional sense as "rural sanctuaries" or "isolated elite seats".
In recent years we investigated several sites with combination of geophysical prospection, local topography analysis together with links to potential primary sources (especially gold), pollen analysis, and soil geochemistry. In this contribution we would like to present an overview of the research on enclosed farm-type settlements in Bohemia as well as our current interpretation of their role and function in different local socio-cultural environments.