A comprehensive approach to certain structural problems and a wide array of scientific issues of both natural sciences and humanities should include methods of digital modelling of complex systems. Past human societies and their settlement structures represent in a certain point of view complex systems. Agent-based modelling (ABM) and simulation represents a methodological framework to construct digital models of studied contexts in order to test the viability of existing theoretical models in both qualitative and quantitative aspects. An explicitly formulated “artificial society” (e.g., Danielisová, Štekerová 2015) can be built on the basis of all available archaeological sources, proxy data, estimates and existing theoretical models in research of the Germanic society of the Middle Danube region (Moravia, W Slovakia – Záhorie region and Lower Austria to the north of the Danube). The main concern lies in the establishment of a digital model which would reflect the available archaeological knowledge and estimates about the Germanic settlement structure and possible demographic development from the 1st century AD up to the period of the Marcomannic wars. Similar attempts at archaeological demography certainly contain wide ranges of methodical issues, mostly due to the limited input data and known aspects of population dynamics from archaeological records, nevertheless, this attempt represents a pilot effort of the initial framework implementation phase designed to explore the basic demographic properties of the studied context.
The ‘Celts Beneath the Pálava Hills’ exhibition was installed at the end of the summer of 2020 at the Regional Museum in Mikulov. The museum prepared the exhibition in cooperation with the Moravian Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno. Along with other unique exhibits, an assemblage of 70 metal artefacts stored in Dolní Dunajovice in the study collection of the Research Centre for the Roman and Great Migration periods of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, was chosen to be displayed for this event. The article presents 47 small artefacts made of copper alloys, 18 coins and five glass artefacts from 17 cadastral units, which enriched the exhibition with a variety of characteristic LT C and D1 finds. They do not form a complete collection, as their common denominator is that they were found in 2011–2017 solely by metal detectorists working together with the archaeologists from the workplace where the finds are stored. These never-before-published artefacts and the qualities of each deserve to be presented both to the public and the professional community. These artefacts include finds which, in the context of the Late Iron Age of south Moravia, are unique objects (including two bronze figurines) that are significant contributions to the clarification and differentiation of the topography of the La Tène settlement structure in the studied region.
In the effort to revise the present state of preservation and knowledge of archaeological components on the site Drnholec “Holenická pole” in South Moravia, the various non-destructive (aerial and geophysical prospections) or lesser invasive (metal detector prospection) methods have been applied. The aim was to identify areas of activity, their functional and chronological interpretation and to determine the basic spatial relationships of the main components. By combining the results of individual methods, areas of activity from the La Tène and Roman times were identified with a relatively high degree of certainty. An entirely new discovery is the supposed presence of a Roman temporary camp in this intensely populated position. Part of its fortification was identified by geophysical survey, and also in the set of metal-detector finds chronologically related significant objects can be identified.