Velebit until the Roman conquest

The area of Velebit from the earliest times until the Roman conquest

Relatively little information is available today about the intensity of life from the Early Stone Age to the Roman conquest. The reason for this primarily lies in the poor archaeological research of this area. Nevertheless, previous studies confirm the continuity of human habitation in this area since ancient times. A significant increase in the number of settlements can be traced during the Iron Age (1st millennium B.C.), both in the neighbouring areas and the Velebit slopes. On coastal slopes, for instance, fortified settlements were built near passages leading to the topmost regions, and were even to be found further away towards the other side of the mountain. The trails, which still today connect the foothill villages with the mountain expenses, coincide with the prehistoric roads into the mountain. The topography of the terrain allowed limited access to the mountain. Inhabitants from later periods therefore made practical use of the existing, beaten paths and they repaired, maintained and sometimes expanded them. Today, these pathways are mostly overgrown by vegetation and ruined due to decades of neglect caused by the lack of travellers and users to maintain them.

From the earliest times the inhabitants of the Velebit seaward foothills, Podgorje have depended on the mountain where they lived in snow-free periods. The foothill regions did not provide sufficient resources for sustenance. At the end of autumn and the beginning of winter they would descend from the mountain to their villages near the sea, carrying supplies of hey and food. As soon as the snow started to melt, they would again return to the embrace of the rugged, yet plentiful mountain, taking on their migration from the foothills everything they could carry with them. Inhabitants from the other, landward side of Velebit did similarly. Nevertheless, the Velebit inland regions of Lika had more arable land, pastures and water and migration to the mountain was motivated by strong competition, possibly limited access to land for cultivation and occasional dense population (notably during the prehistoric times and the Middle Ages). However, the inhabitants of the coastal (Podgorje) slopes and the inhabitants of the inland (Lika) slopes of Velebit would not have been able to survive without the exchange of goods and cooperation (salt was exchanged for various grains etc.). They were not separated by the mountain, but brought together and made dependent on each other.

One of the crown witnesses of the continuity of life and utilization of all the available resources is certainly the Inscribed Stone. It is found in the Velebit Nature Park, in the Legenac region, under the rocky Gavranuša (peak Kuk, 1282 meters above sea level), not far from the old pathway that used to connect Stinica and Jablanac on the coast with Kosinjski Bakovac on the Lika-facing side of the mountain. The Latin inscription on a large piece of broken-off cliff is telling us that under a border agreement between the Parenthine and the Orthopline communities, the Orthoplines were allowed access to a water source located in Parenthine territory. The Parenthines (presumably from the Kosinjska Dolina region) and the Orthoplines (presumably from the present-day Stinica near Jablanac, on the coast) were tribal communities of the Iapodes people. From the inscription we may infer that the coastal foothills tribe Orthoplines had control over the top regions of this part of northern Velebit and that the border was located at the strategically very sensitive entrance point to the Lika inland. Aqua viva (Live Water) – the source referred to in the inscription – is most probably the present-day source Voda Begovača, about 1200 meters farther in the direction of Kosinjski Bakovac. The inscription belongs to the time of the Roman province of Dalmatia, but is difficult to date with certainty (probably 1st century B.C., when, during the formative period of the Roman provincial system of government, activities on regulating the relationships between the indigenous communities were intensified).