Zprávy památkové péče 2018, 78(3):225-233 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2018.3.06

Documentation of a 19-20th century suburban recreational landscape using archaeological methods. A defunct outing restaurant with railway stop in Zábělá near Plzeň

Petr Sokol

NPÚ, ÚOP v Plzni

The forested unit called Zábělá at the northeastern outskirts of Plzeň has long been a wooded area with multiple evidence of older landscape use from prehistoric times to the present. This article focuses on evidence of suburban recreational use of the area from the second half of the 19th century. It specifically focuses on the history of a defunct outing restaurant with a railway stop and an assessment of the current condition. It also acquaints the reader with the results of an exploration of terrain and building relics as well as of landscaping and mobiliary. The exploration involves not only surface surveys, photodocumentation, and basic geodetic orientation, but above all relies on aerial laser scanning data, digital terrain models, and three-dimensional models with an appreciation of the contribution of these methods (used particularly in archeology) to understand and present the studied territory and landscape.
The historically wooded area in the surroundings of Zábělá with its relics of an extinct medieval village, together with the nearby Černá Myť burial site, the Holý vrch fortified settlement, and the remnants of an outing restaurant and railway stop and their appropriate structure of paths and terrain modifications all represent an extraordinary location within the city not only regarding the concentration of archaeological sites and the degree of their potential, but also regarding the survival of traces of an ancient cultural landscape in general. The remnants of the outing restaurant and railway stop, together with the contemporary routes and their partly surviving inventory, represent the youngest historical layer of this landscape section which also interlaces with older layers (plowfields of a medieval village, structure of a fortified settlement). The use of LLS data analysis and its visualization in the form of digital terrain models and three-dimensional modeling of land divisions, together with photodocumentation and geodetic surveying, represent methods combining the documentation of larger areas as well as their parts and details (field and building relics, landscape modifications, mobiliary). At the same time, these methods allow for a perception and analysis of the area in a wider scope as well as a practical way of presenting the results of the survey and documentation of such a territory with its traces of the older and the newer cultural landscape.

Keywords: aerial laser scanning, cultural suburban landscape, landscape documentation, archeology of modernity, outing restaurant; railway stop, Zábělá near Plzeň

Published: September 1, 2018  Show citation