5 minutes car-drive from Čakovec, above the gothic chapel in Šenkovec, in the forest on the hill there is another suprise hidden - prehistoric site which most probably had ellipse shape! 

The ellipse shape has been preserved till today in lanscape, and we discovered it first on Google Maps. 


Fig. 1

Prehistoric sites - enclosures or tells mostly have irregular circle structures, not so often regural or ellipse.
But there is a prehistoric ditched enclosure with perfect ellipse shape at Meisternthal in Germany. There are also ellipse shaped ditched enclosures in Portugal. The main axis of Meisternthal enclosure is orientated North-South, and the other East-West. Meisternthal ellipse is older than Stonehenge, and its doors are orientated according to winter and summer solstice, thus the enclosure being an example of an early sacral geometry that served as calender.

Above Šenkovec there is a hill now all forest and bushes. But observed with critical view, especially if one has previously seen early settlements in the forest like e.g. Kozelin above Moravče, one can see that it isn't completely natural-shaped hill. The sides are too steep and too regular.

Fig. 2

Archeologists have confirmed that it is a prehistoric site, and they found pottery and fundaments, the age is being dated at the time of writing this article. 
What we have discovered on Google Maps this site has a regular ellipse shape. The main argument for the ellipse is its orientation - main axis is aligned East-West, and the smaller axis is aligned North-South. (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3

So how does this look on the field? It is the outter edges of the sides/slopes that produce the ellipse shape visible on Google Maps. The hill was originally connected to the bigger hill which stretches to West. direction Ksaipa and Mondriane castle, but due to (early) human interventions in the lanscape it was separated from it. 
A part of the walls/side of the hill on the south-eastern side is missing (Fig. 4 - marked green) - here it is clearly visible that soil was digged and used, which led to erosion and dislocation of the earth above it. In 20th ct. there was a cellar where ice was kept. Ice was from the creek flowing beneath the settlement. On the North-Weste side the peaks of the walls have also sunken.


 
First measurement of the outter edges of the "walls" has confirmed the ellipse shape, if not completely perfect due to obstacles like bushes and trees. We can say that peaks of the walls also follow the ellipse shape, but through thousands of year have been erroded, sunken, so the ellipse shape of the wall-peaks is at these parts is broken. 
The measured outter diameter (outter edge) of the site is around 530-540m. The main axis of the ellipse is orientated East-West and is around 192m long (the bottom of the slopes). The smaller axis aligned North-South is around 135m long. The estimated diameter at the top of the site is around 153m (East-West), and North-South diameter at the top is around 102m. These are preliminary measurements/estimations that have to be confirmed/checked by geophysicist, but we do not expect to bigger divergence.

Google Maps is good for finding prehistoric structures, but the final answer has to be given by geophycists.
However, it is less probable that the hill settled in ellipse shape "by nature" than that it was constructed by human work.
In case geophysicists confirm the ellipse shape of the Šenkovec site, it would be a great thing for Međimorje county. Around the site a education-path in regular ellipse shape can be constructed, and on the hill a wooden lookout with a nice view on Čakovec, Lower & Upper Međimorje can be errected.
The English have Stonehenge, Germans have prehistoric ellipse shaped site - sacral calender, and Kaikavians have a prehistoric site probably in regular ellipse shape.

View from the steep slopes of prehistoric settlement grown into forest.


Text: Mario Jembrih, mag.rer.soc.oec, 8.12.2014.
Pictures © Kaikavian Renaissance & Goran Žurić
 

Recommended literature:
A. Valera: Portuguese prehistoric ellipse enclosures
F. Tichi - Ellipse at Meisternthal  in Germany as an example of prehistoric calender
Prehistoric settlement in ellipse shape from 800. b.n.e. on Palma de Mallorca
Neolithic circular enclosures in Central Europe