Podzemelj is a village on the left bank of the Kolpa River in the Municipality of Metlika in the White Carniola area of southeastern Slovenia, next to the border with Croatia. The area is part of the traditional region of Lower Carniola and is now included in the Southeast Slovenia Statistical Region.NamePodzemelj was mentioned in medieval written sources only with reference to the village church, as  sancti Martini 'Saint Martin's Church' in 1279 and as ecclesia sancti Martini prope Culpam 'Saint Martin's Church near the Kolpa River' in 1337. The name is derived from a combination of the preposition *podъ 'under, below' + *zemľa 'earth', referring to a ditch built for defense purposes . The name therefore means ' below the trench'.HistoryA fortified prehistoric settlement, one of the largest in White Carniola, was located on Kučar Hill above Podzemelj. It existed from the first millennium BC at least to the Roman era, and Roman inscriptions have been found at the site dedicated to the deity Silvanus. Excavations indicate that settlement may have lasted at the site until the Middle Ages. The inhabitants of the hill settlement buried their dead in mound graves at Podzemelj and elsewhere; the mound burial site at Podzemelj consists of approximately 30 burial mounds. Almost all of them were excavated before the First World War and the finds were transferred to the archaeological museum in Vienna.