 Thank you very much for giving me a chance to present my ideas. Since the 19th century, a space is not seen just as an inanimate, passive scene for human activities, so I'm not going to convince you that the space and the man are in mutual relations that modifies both sides. For the purpose of today's speech, I assume that space is not only a place, it is a complex of places. These properties and these properties are evaluated by man. Space is modified by human and it modifies human choices and behaviors. And the human space for specific activities and these choices are made based on the properties of the space. So I'm going to talk today about heel forts. In the Bronze Age, the most common explanation for strongholds' emergence is that it was a very turbulent time and it was a time of intensification of conflicts between people. So that's why people try to protect themselves in the places where they live. Thank so many efforts to fortify a settlement can be seen as a part of the Bronze Age arms race. Not only to really protect the residents but to create a vision that this particular place is well protected. Anyway, attacking a heel fort or stronghold or any fortified structure is more dangerous for attackers, I think, than for defenders. I would like to check another possibility that the visibility could be an important factor, one of these important factors to build fortification around the living space. I start with this two maps. The first millennium before Christ is the time of emerging fortified settlement structures on the territory of Central and Central Eastern Europe. The debate on the reason for emergence of such structures and the overall role continues since the first discoveries of such structures. Here are two complement maps. With the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age fortified settlements north of Bohemian, Massif and Carpathians, there are basically two major groups. The first is the southern one. The example can be the Stratua Fosobovica, our Fetski Shaniets fortified settlement. This southern group is much denser and consists of strongholds that are built in a hilly landscape, usually on a top of hills, not necessarily high hills. That was just distinctly outstanding from the surrounding landscape. We have here the Stratua Fosobovica, the map of the Stratua Fosobovica. It is the upper part of the hill. That was altered and fortified in the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. It is placed on the moraine, only a few meters higher than the surrounding terrain, but well-defined and visible. Actually, nearby there is another one, also located on the moraine ridge, but only a part of it is still present. It's Kaplichnevskurze, both were partially excavated about a long ago. Here we have a real hill fort. On a hill visible from a distance and having a good view on the surroundings during being higher, and placed on naturally defensive places due to steep slopes that were then raised by fortification for walls. Here we have another group of strongholds, very Iron Age strongholds. A northern group, Lesdens, consists of strongholds using another aspect of natural defensiveness, limited access from the land and broad view towards the water. Here we have... there's no example of the most famous early Iron Age stronghold of Lusatian culture, Biskupi. What is so obvious that I would like to show you another one, another stronghold. And we have third group. It consists of several, only several strongholds. All the strongholds are somehow connected with the river or the water, which is northern from Havela, Spri and Varta, even Varta is here. Strongholds are even less frequent than in the southern part of the European Central European Plain. Most of them are linked, as I said, to the water, but all of them are placed on exposed locations, on upper parts of the local hills. Working on a project, human environment, on a Bronze Age and early Iron Age, in Strait in Lowland, I was able to find seven such structures. Here we have a list from Gadska Minka to Svobnica. Most of them are connected with water, with all other flow, or on islands near a seashore. It's not a seashore, it's a lagoon shore. But there are two of them, Eggersin and Svobnica, that are not connected with this major transport factor that was the other river. There are also three medieval strongholds that have some alleged Bronze Age-slash-Iron Age materials, but it's not very clear if at the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, in these places we have only open settlement with materials or we have already strongholds. Those were not excavated to a greater extent. Looking at the map, I chose two surely Iron Age strongholds, both are on islands, on Gards and Lubin. Both are placed on an island that separates Strait in Lagoon from an open Baltic Sea. It is not an easy environment to live in. The soils are extremely poor here, the climate is not very nice, windy and quite cold. And this area was not intensively settled, but it could be only a state of research. Why build a stronghold in such a place? Here we have another plan of these two strongholds. Both hillforts, in fact, are placed on the edge of the marine ridge, divided by very flat and low terrain of regressive, regressive Svina river delta. The distance between them is only 16 km. Svina regressive delta is actually an archipelago now. Archipelago of several dozen of smaller and larger islands, periodically completely flooded with British water, the islands overgrown with salty needles or rashes or pickets were found as such. Around 3,000 years ago, so approximately close to the moment when the hillforts were on Gards and Lubin. During the winter and early spring, the whole regressive delta is prone to be flooding. When ice flows down the other river or when the wind pushes into the lagoon sea water. But it is a place when late spring and late autumn, there are a lot of migratory birds. It is also some kind of important thing for passers-by. A stronghold in Gards of Kaminka was excavated in 1963 by Hort and then published by Jana Drager. It is a natural plateau on a gong hill. This plateau is something like 90 meters above sea level and the Svina river delta is with mean elevations up to 7 meters above sea level. Nowadays, this area is highly modified under this moraine ridge. It is highly modified, trained and built up. The city of Svina-Ujtje is in this place and the Polish German border is in this place. The distance in the striped line to Stecin Lagoon is approximately 2.5 km and to the Svina striped is 4.5 km. So basically the shoreline is inside. Though now it is obscured by the blocks of flats in Svina-Ujtje and Port Crane. I found a nice lithography here showing the view from 19th century. Its view from a gong hill or the stronghold was towards Baltic town of Svina-Ujtje and Svina. And we can see that the shoreline is visible from this place. Possibly the shoreline could be even closer at the time of hillfort existence. We don't have exact studies on this. The Svina river is still under the research so we don't know the exact chronology of for me. Hillfort itself can be seen from a quite long distance. Here we have a distance from the land, a view from a distance from a land from a seashore. Because this is the highest point close to the seashore. Second hillfort is in Lubin on Voryn Islands. It is also occupied eastern slope of partially eroded marine hill over the northern bank of Szczecin Lagoon. Only northern and eastern part of the walls are still visible and was excavated in a very small extent. Only two small trenches during the 1960s also. The stronghold now is within the limits of Voryn National Park covered with quite dense forests. So the chances to excavate this hillfort are close to zero now. The question whether the shoreline was inside is easy because it is a cliff just above the beach in fact. So the water is perfectly visible and it was visible from the open Baltic as we can see on this upper photo. Not the open Baltic, sorry. It is a view from Szczecin Lagoon, the Baltic Sea as such. It is not visible because it is 7.5 km and there is a taller, higher hill between the hillfort and the sea. But looking at the map as we look today on the map with little reflection that in the past people don't see the world like we see with this bird perspective. But looking on the map with this two strongholds so close to each other, I was wondering if they were intervisible. And I even performed visibility analysis but I'm not going to show you the outcome of this analysis because it's nothing to be shown in fact. The analysis shows me what is perfectly understandable after a few moments of reflection. Those hillforts are not facing each other. The first thing, another thing is that the human side is about around 5 km and 16 km so it's not. Both hillforts though have a good site on the waterway. It is located on Szpina and Baltic Sea and Lubin on a lagoon and probably at the beginning of the entrance on a Szpina river and a strip. I would risk the test that the view on and from a waterways was one of the reasons to invest in building a stronghold. The waterways offers quite a quick and safe way to travel. Along with the coast there is one more aspect I would suggest that this migratory bird could be also one of the main points to protect this white resource from any travelers that come along. So the hunting place could be also protected by this hillfort so we can't say for sure. And here is a part of the 17th century map of Great Darcy of Pomerania so called Lubinus map. It shows the waterways on the former riverbed of Szpina here with us. And there are some interesting elements on this map. Some elements along the seashore. First we have a group of hills here. Here we have a stronghold on this first hill. Here probably we had this Bronze Age or Iron Age fortified settlement of Lubin and on the second on the third there was a medieval stronghold. And there are also two quite big islands. It's probably Krasibur and Wilkie Krzeg and here we have Danse Forest. And here is a hill of Gorm and guards hillfort. And I think this is all I have to present you. Thank you very much for your attention.