Monumental Circular Enclosures, So-Called Rondels of the Late Neolithic in the Czech Republic

In this guest lecture at the University of Cyprus, Jaromír Kovárník of the University of Hradec Králové examines the monumental circular enclosures, known as rondels, built across Central Europe during the Late Neolithic. Detected largely through aerial archaeology, crop and soil marks, and magnetometric survey, at least fifty-one of these earthworks have been identified in the Czech Republic, consisting of concentric V-shaped ditches broken by entrances and accompanied by inner palisades and outer banks.

Kovárník first reviews the twelve known rondels in south and south-west Moravia, belonging to the oldest phase of the Moravian-East Austrian group of the Painted Pottery culture, and compares them with Lower Austria. He then turns to Bohemia, where thirty-nine rondels belong to the Stroke-ornamented Pottery culture, with a cluster along the right terrace of the Elbe between Jaroměř and Hradec Králové. He presents his rescue excavation of the triple rondel at Plotiště nad Labem II and radiocarbon dates placing Central European rondels between roughly 4950 and 4500 BC. Imports of Moravian-East Austrian painted vessels in Bohemian rondel settlements suggest shared construction knowledge between regions.

The talk then considers how rondels were built and used. Kovárník discusses evidence for outer banks, calculations of the thousands of tons of loess moved by collective labour, the 142 broken anthropomorphic and zoomorphic terracotta figurine fragments deposited in the ditch at Těšetice-Kyjovice, and the orientation of entrances toward solstices and equinoxes. In the discussion afterwards, Pavlos Flourentzos and the chair ask about animal and human bones in the ditches, contemporary cemeteries in Hungary, and grain deposits.