Abstract:

In 2004, a team of archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology from Zagreb and the Požega Town Museum conducted archaeological survey and registered cultural goods found along 39 km of road routes located in the Požega Valley from Brestovac via Požega to Pleternica and from Velika to Požega. We ascertained that the road routes crossed over ten archaeological sites, two of them registered in the influence zone A, and one outside the route. The sites are prehistoric, Classical and medieval, and in zone A there is also a religious structure. At two sites, the remains of Roman roads were discovered, and on one site a Roman milestone, the first such find in the Požega Basin. After field survey and expert data processing, we delivered comprehensive documentation for urgent preventive conservation of thirteen registered archaeological sites to the competent Conservation Department in Požega. After surveying and processing the data and the finds, in accordance with the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, a “Conservation Assessment Study on the Impact of Road Construction on the Cultural and Historical Heritage” was made. The Study contains the preconditions for road construction - the rescue of valuable cultural heritage from destruction, which includes obligatory permanent monitoring by archaeologists when removing the uppermost layers of soil at all located road routes, as well as rescue excavations at the registered sites. Another precondition stated by the Regulations is the conservation of Classical settlements and roads and their presentation within archaeological tourist parks. Future rescue excavations at registered archaeological sites on road routes shall increase the meagre knowledge of the oldest settlements in the Neolithic, Eneolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Near the village Velika, a part of the large Classical settlement and a portion of Roman roads will be excavated, whose presentation might become part of a future archaeological tourist park. Archaeological monitoring of road routes facilitates the discovery of still unknown archaeological sites in the Požega Valley, with its extraordinarily rich cultural and historical heritage from all periods of history.

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