Air-detected cropmarks of the Hill of Říp Neolithic sacred landscape in the heart of Europe

Martin Gojda (Dept. of Archaeology, University of West Bohemia, Czechia) Petr Krištuf (Dept. of Archaeology, University of West Bohemia, Czechia) Jan Turek (Dept. of Archaeology, University of West Bohemia, Czechia) The paper brings results of a long-term research of one of the most spectacular prehistoric and early medieval landscapes in Bohemia, a natural plateau raised above the most fertile Elbe river lowland part of the country and crowned by the Hill of Říp – a landscape node traditionally (since the early 12th century) connected with the mythical beginnings of the Czech history, concretely with the arrival of the earliest groups of Slavs headed by their leader named Boemus. Via a systematic large-scale aerial reconnaissance carried out since the 1990´ (and supported by the application of other non-invasive field methods and carefully assorted test excavations) a noticeable concentration of early Neolithic long barrows and ceremonial sites (large ditched enclosures) has been detected on the territory of the Říp plateau. Due to lack of archaeological evidence on settlements datable to the same period we have concluded that in the Neolithic the landscape around the Hill had been understood by the then population as exclusively sacred area connected with funerary rituals and probably ceremonial communication with their deity personified to the Hill of Říp. Supportive to this interpretation is also the fact that in prehistory the Hill - as a dominant natural monument extremely well visible from a long distance - was never fortified and turned to a common profane settlement (hillfort).