Research
Locating Bronze Age Settlements
Seven settlement sites, identified by surface finds as Prehistoric, and likely Bronze Age in date, were located during the 2010 season. Two of these, Spasovine and Likodra, both known from previous survey, were further surveyed in detail. Spasovine was tested with a small exposure, and Likodra was mapped to locate exposures from the excavations in the 1980s that were never published. The other five settlements: Crkvine, Kicer, Kruglic, Majdan, and Mali Gradac were unknown prior to this. At least three of these form the first corpus of Bronze Age settlements known from the Jadar region of western Serbia.
Locating Tin Sources
Possible sources of tin ore (cassiterite) were sought through walking the Jadar tributaries flowing south from Mt. Cer, especially the Milinska Reka and Ravnajica. Samples of sand and gravel were taken from sand bars, banks, and stream bottoms approximately every fifty meters. Stream and sample locations were entered in the field using Trimble Juno GPS units and a Trimble GeoXT GPS receiver, washed and separated in the field laboratory and tested for elemental constituents using a hand-held X-ray fluorescence apparatus. Over 200 samples were processed in this manner, with three giving significant tin concentrations.
