engleski

Use of caves in the mountains: a view from the sheepfold

Učka mountain (1401 m a.s.l.) stands out between the interior of the Istrian peninsula and both its North-Eastern continental hinterland and the Adriatic coast, and at least since the Roman period this clearly defined frontier served as an administrative border. Recent work by the Pupićina Cave Project (1995– 2002), has extended our understanding of the human use of this mountain back into the Late Glacial period. This paper presents a case study of Vela Cave, a deeply stratified rockshelter site, located in the immediate vicinity of Pupićina Cave, the main focus of the project (Miracle and Forenbaher 2005, 2006). Vela Cave was periodically visited ever since the Late Pleistocene, occupation becoming more intensive in more recent prehistoric periods. The recovered evidence suggests that Vela Cave was a “ satellite site” of Pupićina, and that it was used by Neolithic and Bronze Age herders primarily as a pen for keeping herds of sheep and goats. This case study provides one window onto the changing human use of mountain landscapes in the Northern Adriatic region.

caves; Učka mountains; sheepfold

nije evidentirano