A reconstruction of a Celtic Grubenhaus took place in the Children's Prehistoric Open-air Museum in Kosmonosy (Mladá Boleslav region). They reconstructed a sunken feature with a centre row of postholes from the site of Markvartice (Jičín region). The sub-rectangular plan of the sunken part was 540 cm long, 264 cm wide and 38 cm deep into the loess subsoil. The feature is dated to LT C2.

The amount of wood used for the construction nearly corresponds to other experiments (2.9 m3). The amount of daub (1.2 m3), on the contrary, was several times lower. The amount of daub used corresponds to the amount of loess gained from the dug out area. If we suppose two adults and two 10-13 years old children working 10 hours a day the building would take about 7 weeks. The construction was built under the conditions of a children's group for experimental archaeology and therefore some of the basic conditions of an archaeological experiment could not be fulfilled which decreases the value of the experiment.

The habitability of the house was also tested and the durability of its structural elements was observed. The Altamira reconstruction of the Grubenhaus is the first attempt in Czech archaeology to increase our knowledge of Celts' houses. We can assume that it has been proved that the members of Celtic farming communities could build a Grubenhaus within a few weeks.

The second stage of the living experiment took place from the 27 July to the 3 August 2001. We wanted to measure the development of temperatures in summer conditions without heating. The test showed the presumed insulation properties of the post-built house. The change of temperature within the interior was more balanced than the change of the outside temperatures. This is documented by comparison of the differences between maximum and minimum temperatures in the middle of the room and outside (Chart 1). At the same time we should not overestimate the insulating abilities of the house because the difference between the maximum and minimum temperatures in the interior during the day never varied more than 8°C from the outside temperature (Chart 1).

In the third stage, which took place for 11 days from the 1 to the 11 February 2002, we wanted to observe the change of the thermal regime during an extended stay. The humidity stabilized on the third day. The change of ratio between temperatures stabilized on the fifth day. So we can say that within four or five days of occupation with a hearth as a source of heat the living room warmed and dried to a sustainable level. This represented at the edges of the room a 4 - 6°C difference from the external temperature and 11 - 16°C in the central part of the room. There is still a question as to if the thermal regime of the post-built house would change over a period of occupation lasting for months.

Full Czech version of the article is available here:

 eXrea-net_REA3_materialy_Anyz.pdf (7 stran; 1,35 MB)