Abstract:
Based on the implemented integrated methodological (geophysical, archaeological and geomorphological methods) approach at the beginning of 2020, it was established that a compact cultural lithological-stratigraphic layer is marked in the modern soil sections under the humus horizon to the west-northwest of the construction embankment of the highway. The layer includes a dark alluvial soil in which small fragments of Roman pottery were present: kilns, pottery sherds, charcoal, small pieces of brick plaster. The excavated anthropogenic site is outlined by gravel-boulder structures (foundations), the walls above which were probably made of wood, plastered with clay and dated to the Roman era, as well as an alluvial cover of sandy-clay solder of different configuration, dimensions and insignificant thickness. In addition, during the archaeological excavations, several ceramic fragments from the Iron Age and a large amount of domestic pottery – tableware, kitchenware and coins from the second to the middle of the third century AD were also found. The fossilization of fragments of the identified compact cultural layer is associated with the onset of the sub-Atlantic phase or the second climatic optimum, which was characterized by a warm and humid climate, and continued into the new millennium. The active erosion-denudation processes in the range of the summit areas on the western bank of the Vit River valley are probably connected with that warm climatic optimum. Those processes caused the formation of a transeluvial-proluvial lithodynamic flow of sandy-clay and gravelly sands, as well as a significant participation of a gravel-boulder fraction of clastic deposits accumulated at the base of a sedimentary cone, which buried the cultural layer between the two landmasses west and east of the “Cantona”. Salvage field research has been only carried out in the western segment of the site, while the eastern fragment is yet to be further excavated and objectively and thoroughly studied.