U radu se preliminarno objavljuju rezultati istraživanja na položaju Dvora knezova Iločkih u Iloku koji se odnose na protopovijesno vrijeme. Keramički nalazi koji potječu iz samo djelomično očuvane stratigrafije naselja ukazuju na njegovu pripadnost bosutskoj grupi, s prisutnošću elemenata daljske keramografije. Nalazi su prilog poznavanju prapovijesnih naselja na iločkoj zaravni i dijelom rasvjetljavaju granicu bosutske i daljske grupe na prostoru sjeverozapadnog Srijema.For many thousands of years, the margin of the loess plateau
making the right Danube bank higher, between the significant
river-crossing from Srijem to Bačka, has been an
attractive spot for settlement, as numerous finds from the
area of the town of Ilok verify. Archaeological evidence was
most frequently preserved as chance finds as a consequence
of construction work within the urban zone, which Ilok has
been ever since the Middle Ages. The first rescue archaeological
excavations, which yielded extraordinary valuable
data on the prehistoric and Middle Age period, were undertaken
in 1982 near the northern walls of the town of Ilok. In
2001 archaeological conservation works took place to the
north of the eastern wing of the Odescalchi castle. The excavations
brought to light recently raised layers from the time
of the castle renovation and the terrace construction, as well
as baroque architecture. Medieval walls and the related
trenches were unearthed. Despite the rich construction activities
on the representative site of the Upper Town of Ilok,
the stratigraphy of the prehistoric times was partly preserved.
Those are the layers of the Bosut group settlement.
In this paper the results and finds of the excavations related
to the first centuries of the last millennium BC are presented,
and the border between the Bosut and the Dalj
group and their mutual influences are investigated.
The preserved stratigraphy of the Bosut group layers
on the site of the Ilok dynasty castle lies in the part preserved
in the semi-entrenched building (Fig. 1). The pit
was mainly destroyed by medieval trenches and the baroque
cellar walls, made on sterile soil (Fig. 2). Pottery and
daub finds were also unearthed from the layers found
above the stratigraphy of the Bosut group, as well as in the
medieval trenches intended for wall foundations. Owing
to the poor condition of the pit it is not possible to come to
any reliable conclusions as to its function. In the excavations,
five layers rich with pottery finds were sorted out (SJ
083, 088, 099, 106, 108). Pottery artefacts such as pots with
an S-profiled body and an inverted, sometimes faceted rim,
pots with a rounded body and a conical neck, as well as
pots with a rounded body decorated by a plastic band with
fingerprints are classified as the Kalakača phase of the
Bosut group. Such is the case with bowls with a rounded
body and a flat rim, as well as bowls with an incised body.
The inventory of the Bosut group settlements includes also
cups with a handle higher than the rim, and canthari. Bowls
with a rounded body and an inverted, either faceted or
cannelured rim, are common forms of the Dalj and Bosut
groups (Tasić, 1979, 13). The mentioned artefacts decorated
by engraved isolated lines or bunches of lines were
uncovered in the settlements of the Kalakača phase of the
Bosut group, whereas the artefacts themselves, without
considering the decorations, appear throughout the entire
Bosut group phase. According to up-to-date results of the
excavations the settlement is classified as part of the Bosut
group, i.e. according to the preserved stratigraphy and pottery
found in these layers as its earliest phase, Kalakača, which
is dated from the 10th to the first half of the 8th century BC, or
into the Ha B period (Tasić, 1983, 122; Vasić, 1987, 544-545),
into whose end the Ilok hoard is dated as well (Majnarić-
Pandžić, 1968). The circumstances of the find point to the
information on the horizontal stratigraphy of the settlement
on the Ilok plateau. The part of the settlement excavated in
2001 is situated to the west of the formerly excavated site near
the Brnjaković residence, where continuity of settlement existed
from the Aeneolithic up until the early Iron Age, which
testifies to the large area of the prehistoric settlements, of
which one is from the period of the Bosut group. Evidence
for this is supplied also from the find of the hoard in Dunavska
Street, situated to the west of this site, and the finds from
Šalitra and Marshall Tito Street, which also lie to the west of
the castle. According to the present state of the excavations
of the Upper Town of Ilok it is not possible to tell whether we
are actually dealing with an integral settlement or a larger
number of settlement complexes from the period. Among the
pottery inventory of the Bosut culture settlement in Ilok it is
possible to recognize pottery artefacts of the Dalj group,
which is not surprising considering the vicinity of its dissemination
area and the unsubstantially clarified border between
those two groups in the Danube Region, which, according to
the latest conclusions, should be near Ilok. We hope that the
continuation of last year’s archaeological excavations and future
publications of the past investigations of the Upper Town
of Ilok will clarify the picture of settlements on the plateau of
Ilok above the Danube River in the first centuries of the last
millennium BC
