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This paper provides an introduction to the edited volume on Rural Settlement. Relating Buildings, Landscape, and People in the European Iron Age.

The terp region of the northern Netherlands is an area with excellent preservation conditions, which make this a suitable area for the study of the remains of ritual practice in the past. One of the most extensively excavated terps is the terp settlement of Ezinge, which has its origins around 500 BC. An inventory of find assemblages that can be interpreted as ritual deposits, resulted in the identification of 142 deposits from the Iron Age alone, many of which are associated with houses. This contribution is concerned with the deposits associated with the life-cycle of houses or performed during inhabitation for the benefit of the inhabitants. Several of these deposits include human remains, either inhumation burials or single, sometimes modified human bones. It is argued that these ritual practices were concerned with the identity, prosperity and continuity of the household, and that the house can be considered a representation of the household.

Rezension zu: Andreas Schäfer, Die Kleinfunde der jüngerlatènezeitlichen Siedlung von Berching-Pollanten, Lkr. Neumarkt i. d. Oberpfalz. Mit einem Beitrag von Radomír Pleiner. Marburger Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Band 24. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2010. ISBN 978-3-89646-107-0. ISSN 0724-4304. 464 Seiten mit 172 Abbildungen, 127 Tafeln, 2 Beilagen, Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 91 2013(2015)

Rezension zu: Christin Keller, Die Rekonstruktion sozialer Gruppen der Hallstattzeit zwischen Enns und Donau. Eine statistische Analyse. Berliner Archäologische Forschungen volume 14. Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2015. ISBN 978-3-89646-524-5. 378 pages with 403 illustrations and 1 table, 1 CD-ROM, Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 96 2018(2019)

International audience; Religious concepts were an integral part of the formative period and both the functional and structural evolution of the oppidum of Manching (Germany). The urban area incorporates several sacred areas including a central sanctuary and other building zones. Apart from those architectural remains, the Celtic town includes secondary features of ritual complexes such as an area of abandoned pits and wells in the centre of the oppidum. Depositions of various object categories characterise religious activities which considerably differ from communal, public or semi-public cults in established architectural sanctuaries. This zone of offering pits represents a constitutive element of urban religious life and performed as a "sanctuary in the open".

The majority of humanity have lived out their lives in a ‘rural’ context, and even in our increasingly urbanised world almost half of the global population still live in rural areas. In the European Iron Age, the vast mass of the population clearly lived in small hamlets and farmsteads, and this overarching ‘rurality’ is important for understanding these societies. While there has been a pronounced focus in recent archaeological research on patterns of centralisation and urbanisation, there is a need to reincorporate ‘rural life’ or rurality into these discussions of how people lived. This book is a contribution to the study of rural life in Iron Age Europe, collating case studies extending from southern Spain to northern Scotland and from Denmark to the Balkans. Papers are grouped thematically to open up cross-regional comparisons, ranging across studies of buildings, farms – the basic unit of Iron Age life consisting of its inhabitants, its livestock and associated agricultural lands – to wider settlement patterns and land use strategies. The 29 papers in this volume discuss the disposition, form and organisation of rural settlements, as well as underlying social and economic networks, illustrating both the variability between regions, and also common themes in cultural, economic and social interactions. This volume provides an up-to-date overview of current research, presenting new results for the Iron Age specialist as well as a wider audience interested in the rich tapestry of rural settlement in Europe.

International audience

Arch��ologischer Anzeiger, 2. Halbband 2012, Seit 2009 f��hrt die R��misch-Germanische Kommission des DAI in enger Zusammenarbeit mit arch��ologischen Institutionen der Republik Kosovo geophysikalische Prospektionen durch. Die vielf��ltige und denkmalreiche Kulturlandschaft des westlichen Balkans bietet ein breites Fundstellenspektrum. Das umfangreiche Prospektionsprogramm zielt in erster Linie auf St��tten neolithischer bis r��mischer Zeitstellung. Der gro��fl��chige Einsatz geophy- sikalischer Messsysteme erm��glicht eine wirkungsvolle Bewertung einer Fundstelle in ihrer Ausdehnung und Vielschichtigkeit sowie ihrer landschaftlichen Einbettung. Neben den bekannten und bereits teilweise arch��ologisch untersuchten St��tten wie Gllamnik- Vindenis und Gra��anic��-Ulpiana/Iustiniana Secunda wurden vor allem die bisher nur durch Oberfl��chenfunde oder kleine Suchschnitte erfassten Fundstellen von Runik, Boka e P��r��ev��s, Korish��, Lubozhd�� und Poslisht�� gezielt untersucht. Die geophysika- lischen Messbefunde ganzer Grablandschaften und Siedlungen erweitern und verdichten das Bild einer dynamischen Kulturlandschaft in einer hochfrequentierten Kontaktzone S��dosteuropas in pr��historischer und historischer Zeit.

Variants of Kugelfibeln present in the graves of the Iapodian community in the Una valley are distinguished by particular features, not found on their analogies from the neighbouring areas in south Pannonia. Closer analogies however do exist, but they are found further north, in the area of the Jastorf culture. Also, a similarity between the so-called fibulae with nut-shaped bow (Nußbügelfibeln) and the „Dänische“ Kugelfibeln has been suggested by some authors. The interpretations usually emphasize the importance of amber trade routes, since it is a material featured prominently in Iapodic graves. The grave assemblages with the mentioned types are analyzed on the basis of chronology, typology and provenance, with a critical look on the chronology proposed by Z. Marić.The conclusions can provide insights on the various routes of trade or movement of people and influences that shaped the material culture of the autochthonous communities situated on the periphery of La Tène culture. The finds illustrate them as rather open to northern influences, which corresponds to their position on the North-South communication axis.