Regional Archaeology in the Peja and Istog Districts of Kosova (RAPID-Kosova): Results of the 2018 Field Season

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper reports the results of an initial season of regional archaeological survey in western Kosova, in the districts of Peja and Istog. RAPID-Kosova is the first intensive, systematic survey ever conducted in Kosova, and aims to document settlement and settlement change through time. During June of 2018, we ran three survey teams in three zones covering 15.4 square kilometers in 1510 tracts. Fifteen new sites were identified and 3521 pieces of pottery were collected and analyzed, indicating significant occupations in the region in all periods of the past. Perhaps the most important discovery was a large Bronze Age settlement, called Pepaj, located on the foot slopes below the Gradina hill fort near the village of Lubozhdë. Such "flat" Bronze Age sites are rare in the Balkans, e.g. in Albania. Most late prehistoric sites are located on eroded hill tops with little remaining stratigraphy. Pepaj thus presents the opportunity to investigate an intact late prehistoric village of the type that must certainly have been in contact with villages in northern Albania. Ultimately, we hope to gauge the importance of such contacts to the formation of complex societies in Kosova, including as a result of trade with Greece and, later, Rome.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23457