Bylany is a DanubianNeolithic settlement located around 65km (40 miles) east of Prague in the Czech region of Bohemia. Excavation began in 1956 and work continues today.
It covered a large area of around 0.65ha and was primarily occupied during the fifth millennium BC. Successive long houses were rarely placed on top of or overlapping each other, and archaeologists were able to excavate the site and easily identify around 130 buildings which could be attributed to 25 successive phases, each lasting a presumed 20 years or so and in 3 distinct focal areas. This works out at around ten contemporary long houses at any one time. At least four periods of hiatus or abandonment of settlement have also been suggested.
This intact phasing has been invaluable in analysing the emergence of the Linearbandkeramicculture as more than 100,000 pottery fragments have been recovered.
For many scholars of the European Neolithic the name Bylany conjures up magical images.
From its discovery in 1952 the Bylanyexcavations, under the directorship of Bohumil Soudský, have excited the imagination of all Neolithic researchers.