Joint Harvard-Pennsylvania Bohemian Expedition Reports Finds---Habits of Europeans 4000 Years Ago are Described

The following report, written by H. O'N. Huncken, Ph.D., Associate in European Archaeology at Harvard University, is reprinted through the courtesy of the Alumni Bulletin.

The newly discovered fortress of Homolka, which has stood unknown and untenanted for some 4,000 years upon its isolated hill above the Bohemian plain in Central Europe, has lately been repopulated for a time by a group of American archaeologists, the members of the Central European Exedition of the Peabody Museum of Harvard and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. The director of the expedition is Dr. V. J. Fewkes of the University of Pennsylvania, and the assistant director is R. W. Ehrich '30, of Harvard. The other members of the staff last season were H. L. Movius, Jr. '30, Gordon Macgregor 3G, G. P. Hamlin '30, A. J. Tobler, and J. T. Brenneman, both of the University of Pennsylvania. The expedition has just returned, bringing back to the museums a valuable cargo of archaeological material, which is now being studied. The discovery of an ancient European fortress of 2,000 B. C. may seem remote from modern America, but such excavations as these are gradually revealing the history of our own European forefathers in their progress toward modern civilization.

Homolka, though the main objective of the expedition, was not the only place explored; less extensive excavations were carried on at four other carefully selected points, all in Czechoslovakia. At Lazovice was found a cemetery where the pagan Slavic conquerors of Bohemia of 1,000 years ago buried their dead. With their skeleton were found pots, ornaments, and iron weapons. At Tisice were unearthed the remains of eight large houses built by an iron-using people who lived approximately 2,500 years ago. At Krtenov a still more ancient cemetery of the bronze age, perhaps 3,500 years old, consisting of an enormous number of large burial mounds, was partly explored, and some pottery and bronzes recovered. Finally, at Chrastany a settlement was found of prehistoric people, some of whom lived there as much as 5,000 years ago, long before the fortress of Homolka itself was occupied.

The season just ended was the second the expedition has carried out. Its work during the previous year was confined chiefly to prospecting in various localities in Bohemia in order to determine where more extensive digging would be profitable, and it was then that Homolka was discovered. In a short time the expedition will sail again for its third season's work, which will extend to other parts of Czechoslovakia and also into Jugoslavia.

The representatives of the two American universities have been most hospitably treated in Central Europe. In Czechoslovakia the government has taken the keenest interest in the work, and all the departments which could help have done so to the fullest extent. The Ministry of Education and Culture, whose representatives seemed greatly impressed by their visit to the excavations at Homolka, has been interested and helpful. The work of the expedition has been carried on with the co-operation, and under the auspices of, the State Archaeological Institute of Czechoslovakia, of which Dr. Buchtela and Dr. Bohm are the directors; without their whole-hearted support nothing could have been accomplished. The keen interest of the National Museum, the Slavie Institute, and the Anthropological Institute, all of Prague, also has been of great service. Professor Stocky of Charles University has several times visited Homolka with his students in order to show them the work in progress. In short, all of the scientists and scientific institutions in Czechoslovakia have cooperated in every possible way.

The success of the expedition in Bohemia has attracted attention in other countries, and it has been invited to excavate in Germany, Jugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. These invitations will be accepted as soon as opportunity is found; indeed, some work in Jugoslavia is planned for next year. A recent visit to Belgrade established valuable connections there. As the expedition comes from America its disinterested approach is commonly recognized and it is able to accomplish what political boundaries would otherwise render difficult. Although the funds in hand are somewhat insufficient the staff has been able to excavate on a larger scale than has over before been attempted in that part of the world, with perhaps the exception of the work of Professor Vasic at Vinca in Serbia.

Only those who are acquainted with European archaeology realize how far the inhabitants of Central Europe 4000 years ago had advanced on the road to civilization. The people of Homolka may have seen copper, but they made little use of any metal, and their tools and weapons were skilfully fashioned of stone or bone. They were also excellent pottery-makers, and the large and elaborate series of well-decorated vessels brought back by the expedition is impressive in both quantity and variety. They were also farmers and herdsmen, and no doubt looked down from their strongholds upon fields of grain and pastures for their cattle, sheep, and swine. They knew how to weave, and probably made their clothing from the wool of their flocks. It is easy to surmise that traders occasionally crossed the plain to the fortress, carrying commodities such as flint and salt, and sometimes rarer things--amber from the distant Baltic, seashells from the Mediterranean, and perhaps, later on, little trinkets of Hungarian copper.

The houses in these communities were not mere hovels but substantial wooden structures--what we should call today small cottages; they were generally equipped with little pit-like cellars, which some times contained a wooden bench beside a firepace. The dwellings were grouped closely together on top of the hill, but in the middle was an open space, perhaps a place of public assembly. Around the cluster of buildings was a stout stockade of heavy wooden posts, and in this were elaborately contrived gates, with special provision for defence. At some time the inhabitants apparently decided they needed more room and so they uprooted their stockade and moved it further down the hill. The lower one seems to have had a raised walk on the inner side, so that the defenders could see and fight over the wall.

Thought much has been found out about the residents of Homolka while they were still iving, the dead still remain a mystery. Almost the only burials so far discovered consist of a row of skeletons found on the top of the hill. These, however, proved to be the remains of invading Slavs, who had been interred there nearly 3000 years after the abandonment of the fortress. A search for the original cemetery will be one of the special objects of the work to be carried out there.

Although great cultural interest attaches to the civilizations that arose in ancient times in the Near East, and even more so to those of Greece and Rome, the greater part of the American people are the descendants of the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe. Year by year the story of their long but steady prehistoric progress toward the period of written history is becoming clearer. They owe much to the peoples of Central Europe, who had, in turn, ben awakened by the challenge of Near Eastern civilization, How these Eastern stimuli reached Central Europe and just what effect they had there is still not clearly understood, but the Harvard-Pennsylvania expedition will, if it continues its labors, be able to enrich the museums of the two universities with collections which will be unique in the United States.

It appears certain, furthermore, that Bohemia, the region in which the expedition has thus far concentrated, was the cultural stimuli to the north and west, where our own rude ancestors lived. The contact of these folk with Central Europe remained of great importance until the Roman Empire spread across the continent, but those who lived in the northern and western parts of the British Isles were never conquered by Rome, nor were most of the people of Germany, or the Scandinavians, among whom must be classed the English, who at this early date had not yet lived in their native land of Angel by the Baltic. These peoples, ever since they were stimulated by their long contact with Central Europe, have passed through a continuous cultural development, which has ultimately led to the modern civilization of America and much of Europe.

The ancient peoples of Central Europe are important also for other reasons than their immediate effect upon our own forefathers; for both Greece and Italy were repeatedly overrun by invading tribes in very early times, most of whom came from the North, and the Greeks and Romans were to a considerable extent the descendants of these northern invaders. He who would understand the origins, as well as the downfall, of classical culture must turn his eyes to the restless barbarians of Central Europe