A Scratched Hint of Ancient Ties Stirs National Furies in Europe Czech archaeologists say marks found on a cattle bone are sixth-century Germanic runes, in a Slavic settlement. The find has provoked an academic and nationalist brawl. An archaeological excavation in the Czech Republic at Lany, near the border with Austria, a few yards from where a bone scratched with Germanic runes was found. Credit...Akos Stiller for The New York Times May 16, 2021, 10:40 a.m. ET LANY, Czech Republic — In a region long fought over by rival ethnic and linguistic groups, archaeologists in the Czech Republic have discovered something unusual in these turbulent parts: evidence that peoples locked in hostility for much of the modern era got along in centuries past.