2022/01/15 by Kramberger, Bine
paper · doi:10.34616/ssa.2021.63.47.74
The Iron Age lowland settlement in the Maribor area is hardly known, as most of the sites excavated in the last 25 years have remained unpublished. Therefore, this paper presents Iron Age settlement remains discovered at four multi-periodical sites. The settlement traces at the sites Slivnica 2B, Malečnik and Spodnje Hoče date to the first half of the first millennium BC (Ha B and Ha C) and to the Late Iron Age (LT C and LT D), while the Iron Age settlement at Zgornje Radvanje dates to LT C and partly possibly to LT B. The presented Hallstatt lowland settlements are understood in the sense of the economic hinterland of hilltop settlements (Poštela, Čreta and Meljski hrib) and partly in the sense of managing strategic points in the system of land routes and a river route along the river Drava (Malečnik). The next phase of the lowland settlement in the Maribor region is related to the Celts, who (as it seems today) arrived to an almost completely uninhabited area around 300 BC. The reasons for the lack of settlement on the plain in the era between Ha C2/D1 and LT B2 are not yet known.