The main objective of the project is to improve the knowledge of the structure and functioning of the Roman state in the period of integration of the Karst and Notranjska regions (2nd - 1st centuries BC - Augustan period) and to try to understand the reaction of the indigenous peoples to the incoming conquerors. Recent research in the region under question indicated Roman military
actions took place in the mid or second half of the 2nd century, during
Octavian’s Illyrian wars (35–33 BC), in the Augustan period (27 BC – AD
14) and perhaps also in the decades just before Octavian’s Illyrian
wars. Roman military engagement in the region in many ways influenced
the interrelations between the Romans and local communities. Roman
military, for example, seems to be associated with the abandonment of
several Late Iron Age settlements. On the other hand, there are
indigenous settlements with clear continuity into the Roman time.
One of the key research challenges in studying the traces of the Roman military of the period is the interpretation of small finds. The research will take advantage of a rich collection of Roman military finds and other contemporaneous material kept in the NMS and of topographic data provided by airborne LiDAR technology. High‐resolution airborne LiDAR data are available for free in Slovenia and have great potential for discovering and research of Roman military sites, site complexes and archaeological landscapes.
An important body of evidence for the research problem is Ulaka –
Nadleški hrib site complex in Loška dolina valley. Our previous research
suggests the site complex played an important role in the Late Iron
Age, late Republic and Early Principate within the wider geographic
context of the control over passes and corridors between Caput Adriae
and western Balkans. It includes the Late Iron Age fortified settlement
(hillfort) at the Ulaka hilltop, two Roman forts and presumably also
remains of a Roman military attack in the last decades of the Republican
period. The northern military camp and the traces of a battle were discovered recently. Ulaka–Nadleški hrib site
complex is therefore an excellent case study of a conflict landscape
from the period of Roman conquest of the region east of the province of
Gallia Cisalpina (Italy after 42 BC). We can reasonably expect that an
in‐depth examination of this site complex would make a significant
contribution to our knowledge on Roman expansion in the second half of
the 1st century BC and at the beginning of the 1st century AD.
Items of
military equipment and other Roman stray finds, together with
preliminary airborne LiDAR data evaluation suggest further similar and
presumably roughly contemporaneous sites in the region. Especially promising data is from sites like Grad near Šmihel pod Nanosom with the surrounding area, where the earliest traces of roman military interventions (small finds and a preliminary lidar data analysis) in the wider area were documented and dated to the middle or the 2nd half of the 2nd century BC. Our research will take advantage of the lidar data analysis, GIS tools, both invasive and uninvasive methods of archaeological topography, archaeological ground-truthing as well as typo-chronological and archaeometric treatment of archaeological artefacts.
Publications: