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

This lecture reports the results of an initial season of regional archaeological survey in the districts of Peja and Istog in western Kosova. RAPID-Kosova is the first intensive, systematic survey ever conducted in the Balkan Republic of 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 1,510 tracts. The 15 new sites we identified and the 3,521 pieces of pottery we collected and analyzed indicate 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. Most late prehistoric sites are located on eroded hilltops 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 lecture is sponsored by the Michigan Archaeological Society.
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