Alsónyék-Bátaszék: a new chapter in the research of Lengyel culture

There can be no doubt that one of the major archaeological discoveries made in Hungary during the past ten years was the prehistoric settlement at Alsónyék–Bátaszék. The area was intermittently occupied from the Early Neolithic to the end of the Late Neolithic and the onset of the Copper Age. The prehistoric settlement attained its greatest extent during the Late Neolithic Lengyel period, as shown by the 2359 burials and over 100 post-framed buildings uncovered at the site. This preliminary report describes previous research on the architecture of the Late Neolithic Lengyel culture in Hungary and the Lengyel settlement at Alsónyék and its architecture.Prazgodovinska naselbina pri kraju Alsónyék-Bátaszék je nedvomno eno izmed največjih odkritij na Madžarskem v zadnjih desetih letih. Območje je bilo s prekinitvami poseljeno od zgodnjega neolitika do konca poznega neolitika in začetka bakrene dobe. Prazgodovinska naselbina je doživela svoj največji razpon v pozno-neolitski kulturi Lengyel, kar dokazuje 2359 izkopanih pokopov in več kot 100 stavb, grajenih v tehniki sohaste gradnje. V tem preliminarnem poročilu opisujemo dosedanje raziskave arhitekture pozno-neolitske kulture Lengyel na Madžarskem in arhitekturo lengyelske naselbine pri kraju Alsónyék

Zur relativen Chronologie der Lengyel-Kultur im westlichen Karpatenbecken

The authors analyse the chronological issues of the Late Neolithic — Early Copper age at the Western part of the Carpathian Basin. The primary aim of this study is to determine the relative chronological position of Lengyel Culture graves excavated at site Alsónyék-Bátaszék, as well as to present the various ceramics types. These investigations are considered to be a preliminary study for a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates, through which the absolute chronological status of the Lengyel cemetery at Alsónyék will be possible to learn in the near future

Tuberkulózis nyomai késő neolitikum - kora rézkori magyarországi emberi maradványokban (Alsónyék-Bátaszék, Dél-Magyarország)

Alsónyék-Bátaszék in Southern Hungary is one of the largest late Neolithic settlements and cemeteries excavated in Central Europe. In total, 2,359 burials from the Late Neolithic – Early Copper Age Lengyel culture were found between 2006 and 2009. Anthropological investigations previously carried out on individuals from this site revealed an interesting paleopathological case of tuberculosis in the form of Pott’s disease dated to the early 5th millennium BC. In this study, selected specimens from this osteoarcheological series were subjected to paleomicrobiological analysis to establish the presence of MTBC bacteria. As all individuals showing clear osteological signs of TB infection belonged to a single grave group, 38 individuals from this grave group were analysed. The sample included the case of Pott’s disease as well as individuals both with and without osseous TB manifestations. The presence of TB DNA in the individual with Pott’s disease was established, confirming the occurrence of TB in Neolithic populations of Europe. Moreover, our molecular analysis indicated that several other individuals of the same grave group were also infected with TB, opening the possibility for further analyses of this unique Neolithic skeletal series

The Alsónyék story: towards the history of a persistent place

First paragraph: The papers presented above in this volume have provided formally modelled date estimates for the development of Alsónyék, phase by phase, from the Starčevo to the Lengyel periods. In this final discussion paper, we now aim, first, to bring together all the chapters of the long story into a single narrative, and to attempt a detailed interpretation of its long persistence, which is of a kind so far rather unfamiliar in prehistory. That enables us, secondly, to discuss the Alsónyék story in more interpretive terms, in relation to notions of persistent place, community, aggregation and coalescence, and with an eye on the broader tempo of change. In doing this, we will tack between the site-specific evidence from Alsónyék and wider comparisons from ethnography and recent history, far beyond Transdanubia in both time and space. Thirdly, we will use our formally modelled date estimates from the Lengyel period at Alsónyék to trace the intensity of occupation and of the trajectory of population increase and decline at the site. In discussing the dramatic growth of the settlement in the Lengyel period, we will also, finally, consider some of its possible causes and conditions, but this has to be seen in the context of the ongoing post-excavation research of the Alsónyék project, in which it is important to underline that many basic analyses still remain to be completed. We will end, nonetheless, by looking ahead to key research questions for the future

Midlife changes: the Sopot burial ground at Alsónyék

Archaeological research on the Neolithic of western Hungary started on sites of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) and Lengyel cultures in the late nineteenth century. The existence of assemblages of the Starčevo culture, representing the earliest Neolithic of Transdanubia, became known much later, in the 1970s. In the late 1960s, a close connection began to be recognised between some previously discovered grave assemblages in western Hungary and what was then called the Sopot-Lengyel (SopotskoLenđelska) culture in the Slavonian region of eastern Croatia; this was later labelled as the Sopot culture. However, the full integration of this material into the regional framework of the Neolithic was not without difficulties