The medieval village of Horno was founded around 1200 under the rule of the House of Wettin as a fully planned settlement with a fixed number of plots containing ca. 25 farmsteads, whose clear structure is manifested in the surrounding fields. Numerous finds and contexts have enabled the reconstruction of medieval village structures spanning three centuries until the beginning of the Early Modern Period. Themes of continuity and change in building structure, the varying construction methods of residential and outbuildings, as well as alterations in social topography are discussed. The remains of single story buildings in the form of levelled clay surfaces and stone foundations as well as post-built structures can be distinguished. Subsurface structures such as wood and stone-lined cellars or cellar-like storage pits are considered to be integral components of former buildings. Given the difficulties of water procurement on the Horno plateau, a complex water management system was developed. In accordance with economic requirements, the new settlers seem to have made ideal use of the opportunities offered by the location in the V-shaped valley on the edge of the dry plateau. Facilities such as wooden box-wells, cisterns, ponds and field wells supplied the village with water. In spite of their small quantity, the finds and contexts have allowed detailed observations regarding domestic labour, craft, and trade in Horno. On the whole, the craft activities such as the village blacksmith, but also kiln plants were adapted towards the requirements of agriculture and farm management, although the village inn implies cross-regional connections. On the strength of the large-scale excavation of Horno (ca. 24 hectares), it was possible to examine the finds of a village in its entirety. Since the vast majority of finds are ceramics, special research emphasis was given to this type of find. The objective of the study was to develop guidelines for the identification and dating of medieval ceramics by creating a regionally based chronology. Comparative analysis and dendrochronological results of material excavated from other villages destroyed by open-cast mining, such as Klein Görigk, Kausche and Wolkenberg, confirmed the findings. Typological and material analyses of the heterogeneous ceramics from the village’s founding contexts, indicate that the first settlers originated from three different regions. Firstly, since there was no Slavic settlement in Horno itself or nearby, ceramics fashioned in the late Slavic tradition point to the influence of Slavic settlers. Indeed, neutron activation analysis (NAA) of the ceramics shows that some of the Slavic vessels were made in Horno, for which settlers with Slavic roots must be considered. Secondly, the majority of Horno’s earliest ceramics show strong parallels to the flat-bottomed ceramics of central Germany. Specifically, special vessel forms, such as Bügelkannen, are indicative of immigration from the Wettin regions of the southwest. Lastly, the presence of round-bottomed vessels, which have their origin in the northwest, point to the third area of origin of Horno’s first settlers. Quantity distribution analysis of the ceramics has allowed discussion of village structure and social topography. Remote ceramic imports and products from regional producers were determined through NAA, whereby it was shown that the proportion of long-distance traded high-quality items was very low. In conclusion, it may be noted that new insight has been gained on topics ranging from the many aspects of village life to settlement process and the economic basis of village settlement, as well as trade at regional and national level. However, many new questions arose that in future will be answered by the comparative study of material from other villages. The present work provides a basis for such digressions.weiterlesen