Archaeobotanical summerschool has a long tradition where the main aim is to merge the natural sciences with archaeology, especially in the field of archaeobotany. In these sense students from both of faculties and departments have practical training on some archaeological project, in this case Frontier Studies .

Frontier Studies is an international research project centred on the city of Ohrid and its environs, located on the northern shore of the homonymous lake at the present frontier of Albania and the Republic of North Macedonia. Since its establishment in 2017, the project has been undertaken as a cooperative effort between researchers from Charles University in Prague (Marek Verčík, The Institute of Classial Archaeology) and the Archaeological Museum of Macedonia (Pero Ardjanljev) and from 2019 Czech Geological Service (Jan Hošek) and University of South Bohemia. The aim of the first season was an extensive, trial field survey to unlock the historical landscape and to evaluate the dynamics of the habitation patterns in the region diachronically. (Weissova, Barbora & Tušlová, Petra & Ardjanliev, Pero & Verčík, Marek. (2019). The Frontier Studies. Survey of the Northern Part of the Lake Ohrid Basin, Preliminary Report on the Season 2017. Studia Hercynia. 22.)

The role of the archaeobotanical summer school in this project is to provide data mainly from the field of archaeobotany and landscape ecology trough gathering and tasting samples from micro locations of interest for the project, but also creating reference database of vegetation in order to conduct reconstruction of past landscapes.

In our starting year we had a chance to test several localities (Trebeniste, Grasinca I/II, Daljan, Gorno Lakocerej- Tri topoli, Bobansko ezero, and so on) either with geological trenches done with mechanical excavator or coring. Samples were taken from four for of these localities. The samples were used for different analyses like AMS 14C, macroremains, wood and charcoal analyses, pollen analyses and orther methods…

So far, the analyses provided us with interesting results. Not only that we were surprised by the presence of pile-dwelling settlement on the site Grashnica, but on site we came across large layer of sediment probably caused by some geological event in this region. Analyses that were done by now are verifying the site situation, the Late Bronze age settlement, dates corresponding to the pottery. But they also are revelling first information about the landscape, for example the fact that the region around the city Ohrid which is now a plain was probably covered by water during the prehistoric period.

We are looking forward to the next season.

Nevenka Atanasoska – Jaromír Beneš