Brnjica culture

The Brnjica culture (Serbian: Брњица, Albanian: Bërnica), alternatively Donja Brnjica-Gornja Stražava cultural group, is a Late Bronze Age archaeological culture in present-day Kosovo and Serbia dating between the 14th and 10th/9th centuries BCE.^[1][3]

Brnjica culture

Geographical range	Kosovo
Period	Late Bronze Age
Dates	14th c. BCE – 10th/9th c. BCE[1][2]
Type site	Donja Brnjica
Major sites	Hisar Hill
Preceded by	Urnfield culture
Followed by	La Tène culture

Description

Reconstruction of a Bronze Age house from the locality Hisar

The Brnjica cultural group was a Late Bronze Age cultural manifestation in what was to become Dardania, closely connected to the Balkan-Danubian complex.^[1][4][3] It dates between the 14th and 10th/9th centuries BCE.^[1] In Yugoslavian historiography, starting from Milutin Garašanin, the Brnjica culture was interpreted as the "Daco-Moesian" and non-"Illyrian" linguistic component of the later Dardani,^[4][3] an Iron Age Palaeo-Balkan group appearing as an Illyrian people in ancient literary tradition.^[1]

The Brnjica culture is characterized by several groups:^[3]

• Kosovo with Raska and Pester
• South and West Morava confluence zone
• Leskovac-Nis
• South Morava-Pcinja-Upper Vardar

Brnjica type pottery has been found in Blageovgrad, Plovdiv, and a number of sites in Pelagonia, Lower Vardar, the island of Thasos and Thessaly dating to 13th and 12th century BCE.^[3]

Sites

Donja Brnjica

The main site of the culture is a necropolis at Donja Brnjica, (Albanian: Bërnica e Poshtme) near Pristina.

Hisar

Main article: Hisar Hill

Hisar is a multi-periodal settlement at a hill near Leskovac.

Traces of life of the Brnjica culture (8th century BCE) are seen in the plateau that was protected by a deep moat with a palisade on its inner side, a fortification similar to that of another fortification on the Gradac site in Lanište in the Velika Morava basin.^[5]