The analysis of Bronze Age macrolithic tools: a case study from Csanádpalota-Földvár (Southeastern Hungary) (original) (raw)
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Although many Palaeolithic open-air sites are known on the foothills of the Bükk Mountains near Eger, Andornaktálya-Marinka was only discovered in 2014 thanks to new vine plantations on a hilltop. It was prospected regularly until 2019, and a test excavation was carried out in 2018. The archaeological material consists of a few undiagnostic prehistoric ceramic sherds and daub fragments, and 1706 stone artefacts. Except two fragments of polished axes, the lithic assemblage contains knapped stones. The paper presents the analysis of the lithic assemblage. This demonstrates the characteristics of an 'older' flake industry using almost exclusively local and regional raw materials, and those of a 'younger' blade industry working with long-distance 'northern' flints. The 'older' can be attributed to the Middle Palaeolithic Bábonyian, while the 'younger' should be related to Early Upper Palaeolithic Aurignacian or even to a Late Neolithic or Copper Age occupation.
In this paper, the author presents Late Neolithic (Lengyel culture), Late Copper Age (Pécel-Baden culture), Early Bronze Age (Somogyvár-Vinkovci culture) and Late Bronze Age (Urnfield culture) artefacts made from antler, bone and tusk. The majority of these objects were found at the Early Bronze Age site, the largest fortified settlement established during the period of the Somogyvár-Vinkovci culture (ca. 2500-2300 BC) in Hungary. This assemblage, including 135 artefacts and additional workshop remains, also represents the most abundant collection found at any Early Bronze Age settlement in Hungary. Parallel to the study of artefacts, the archaeozoological analysis of remains representing refuse bones has been also carried out, offering background information about animal husbandry, and the exploitation of various wild species. The abundance of red deer antler implements, blanks and remains representing workshop debitage evidence on site deposition and manufacture of this valued raw material in the Hungarian Bronze Age. The great number of well-made, multi-stage manufacture awls in addition to the various hafted antler implements suggested a different attitude towards bone manufacturing than that found at other coeval settlements. The presentation of the much smaller tool assemblages from the Late Neolithic, Late Copper Age and Late Bronze Age features of the site is restricted here to the short description and summary of tools, and the illustration of the most characteristic specimens.
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In this paper we want to provide a brief introduction to our current research on the Early to Middle Bronze Age (Hatvan to Füzesabony period) settlement sites in the Borsod plain of North-eastern Hungary. Our work is based on intensive archaeological surface survey, aerial photography, topographical measurements and magnetometer survey that provide important data both on the intra and off-site level. With the results obtained so far, it is possible to provide a much more nuanced picture of both the internal structure of the tell and tell-like Bronze Age sites of our study area and their development through time than was hitherto possible. As an example of the ongoing research we will discuss some results of our work at the site of Tiszabábolna-Fehérlótanya including the surface finds, magnetometry and archaeozoological results.
STATE OF THE HUNGARIAN BRONZE AGE RESEARCH Proceedings of the conference held between 17th and 18th of December 2014, 2017
Due to their geographical location and diverse network of contacts, the Bronze Age sites of Hungary, located in the central part of the Carpathian Basin, have long enjoyed great international research interest. Over the past two decades, significant changes have taken place in the research of the Hungarian Bronze Age. The number of studied sites has multiplied, and the size of the studied surfaces has increased spectacularly since the 1990’s. At the same time, an increase in the number of archaeologists studying this period is also observable: nearly 30–40 Hungarian scholars are specialized in Bronze Age by now. Consequently, the amount of available information for this period has also changed remarkably. It is questionable, however, whether the depth and complexity of our knowledge of Bronze Age of Hungary has followed the increase of basic data concerning it. The vast majority of the most recent, outstanding finds and the sites discovered through large-scale excavations is yet unpublished. Apart from a few exceptions, no synthesizing works have been written, and even educational papers effectively mediating scientific results to basic and secondary-level education or to the interested public are also absent. The purpose of the conference in 2014, organized by the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, together with the Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University was to address and challenge the entire Hungarian Bronze Age research. A dialogue like this – spanning generations and schools – creates an opportunity to summarize our results achieved by now, and for the joint discussion of possible new ways and directions to be followed in the future. We hope that this volume may contribute to forming a realistic picture of the current state of research in this period, to direct our attention towards new efforts, as well as to provide a collegial and friendly framework to the discovery of nearly two millennia of the Bronze Age. We would like to thank all the Authors of this volume for their work and patience. The manuscripts were decisively completed between 2015 and 2017. The Editors would like to thank Ágnes Király, Eszter Melis and Borbála Nyíri for improving our work by their care of the visual and linguistic material during the preparation period. Special thanks to our typesetter, Zsolt Gembela, without whose competent work this volume would never have been completed. The publication of this volume was supported by the Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University, the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Momentum Mobility Research Group and the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.
Vajk Szeverényi, Anna Priskin, Péter Czukor, Andrea Torma, Anikó Tóth Abstract Recent research has demonstrated that the southern part of the Great Pannonian Plain can be characterized by the emergence of a series of massive fortified settlements around 1300– 1100 BC. This substantial change in settlement patterns indicates important social and economic transformations in the region, the nature of which, however, is still unknown. Furthermore, the function of these settlements is debated to some degree as they have not yet yielded substantial domestic remains (houses) so that their interpretations as refugia or ritual centres is also possible. We address this issue through the analysis of the remains of the subsistence economy from Csanádpalota-Földvár, Southeast Hungary. We present the preliminary results of the palaeobotanical and archaeozoological analyses, complemented with the study of agricultural macrolithic implements. The results are then compared to those from other contemporary sites in the Carpathian Basin and Southeast Europe. The exploitation of animals follows a general Bronze Age pattern in the region. Plant cultivation shows more diversity in the period. It seems that the practices at Csanádpalota follow wider European trends in some aspects, whereas they diverge considerably in others. Both types of remains as well as macrolithic tools confirm the presence of special depositions at the site that were probably the result of ritual activities.
In this paper we want to provide a brief introduction to our current research on the Early to Middle Bronze Age (Hatvan to Füzesabony period) settlement sites in the Borsod plain of North-eastern Hungary. Our work is based on intensive archaeological surface survey, aerial photography, topographical measurements and magnetometer survey that provide important data both on the intra and off-site level. With the results obtained so far, it is possible to provide a much more nuanced picture of both the internal structure of the tell and tell-like Bronze Age sites of our study area and their development through time than was hitherto possible. As an example of the ongoing research we will discuss some results of our work at the site of Tiszabábolna-Fehérlótanya including the surface finds, magnetometry and archaeozoological results.