Abstract

In 2016, three archaeological trenches were dug on thesite, whoseareatotalled 12.5 ares. Two of them were situated in the south-western part of the site, within a settlement excavated already for a few years. These trenches had an area of 11 ares with 144 documented archaeological features. The latter included postholes, storage pits, and a hearth. The third trench, situated in the south-eastern part of the site and adjoining a Wielbark Culture burial ground, against all expectations, did not contain any sepulchral features. Instead, a ditch and a stone pavement aligned along the east-west axis were discovered on its surface. The large empty space suggests that the edge of the Wielbark necropolis has been reached, so the ditch and pavement may be remains of a construction separating the secular from the sacred part. In the course of the excavations, many artefacts were also obtained from the topsoil. Most of them were found near the third trench which adjoined the forest covering the further part of the site. The discovered artefacts included: bows of brooches, belt buckles, a fragment of a snake-shaped bracelet, belt fitting, profiled node from a Bugelknopffibel type brooch, lumps of melted bronze and lead, a coin with a hole, as well as a bronze seal with an image of a soldier and a partially illegible inscription around the rim: […]TOUR LEvEvER or MELEvER. The handle of the seal was meticulously decorated with two entwined dolphins (?) (Fig. 2). The french inscription suggests the Napoleonic period, however its Russian provenance cannot be excluded either. In this case, it might have been lost during the January Uprising when, according to a local tradition, nearby Russian barracks were burned down, whereas some of the soldiers stationed there were floated to the Wkra river in wooden barrels.