The Únětice Culture Group Cemetery from Lovosice (Litoměřice District) The Únětice Culture Group Cemetery from Lovosice (Litoměřice District): On Early Bronze Age Burial Grounds in Northwest Bohemia
Abstract
The subject of the article is the "group" Únětice culture cemetery from the Early Bronze Age investigated in 2014 in Lovosice (Litoměřice district, northwest Bohemia). The cemetery's dating to 2021-1751 BC corresponds to the mature stage of the Únětice culture in other parts of Bohemia (Moucha's preclassical and classical stages).
The cemetery is characterised by stone and apparently even wooden structures, multiple burials and the exclusive presence of miniature vessels. The population was composed primarily of old adults with the corresponding degenerative productive changes; only two non-adults were determined.
Epigenetic marks on the skeletons testifying to a certain degree of kinship between the buried individuals were documented at the group cemetery and outside of it. New excavations have provided more detailed information on the spatial structure of burial grounds which, in addition to large cemeteries (of the Liběšovice, Březno near Louny, and Velké Žernoseky type), are composed of cemeteries with 10-20 graves, small groups of graves and solitary graves.
These are also frequently accompanied by contemporary settlements located either close to the cemeteries or, as in the case of Lovosice, in the middle of the burial grounds. The spatial distribution of exogenous artefacts (amber beads, gold ornaments, silicite daggers) points to the possibility of the existence of an established network of long-distance routes in northwest Bohemia in the Early Bronze Age.
One of the possible nodal points connected to the long-distance exchange system could have been located in the lower Ohře River region. This is documented, among other things, by the concentration of burial grounds with exceptional finds, settlements with evidence of metallurgy and the largest Bohemian hoards of ingots concentrated in the geographically defined microregion of Lovosice.