New <b> ¹⁴ </b> C Dating of the Silver Hill settlement in Wolin and the Question of the Origins and Urbanisation Model of the Early Medieval Town

Abstract Early medieval Wolin was a multi-part urban agglomeration. One of its most important elements was the settlement within Silver Hill. In order to clarify the chronology of the settlement in its area, 26 new 14 C dates were obtained from layers associated with the northern rampart, the antler workshops, and houses. The results were compared with available dendrochronological and numismatic dates. As a result, the dating of the early medieval settlement on Silver Hill, which may have begun in the first half of the 9 th century and was already fortified at that time, was moved back. Comparison of these results with the dates from the Ogrody district and the centre in the Old Town allowed the formulation of two hypotheses about the formation of Wolin as a result of the merger of two settlements of perhaps different ethnic characters, and the sudden urbanisation breakthrough in the middle of the 9 th century involving both the Old Town and Silver Hill.