Zeiträume und Formenkreise — Zur Chronologie der kupferzeitlichen Nekropolen im östlichen Karpatenbecken

The author searches answers for chronological questions of the Complex of Polgár (Bodrogkeresztúr and Hunyadihalom cultures) that existed in the second half of the 5th millennium BC in the eastern parts of the Carpathian basin. The work is based on 47 cemeteries that supplied sufficient material for the analysis. Methodology was provided by metrical analysis and seriation of 818 dish types and 577 graves. Artificial periods (“künstliche Perioden”) and the phases of cemetery usage (“Belegungsphasen”) were identified both in the particular cemeteries and in the five analyzed regions. As a result of the analyses, we may identify three phases of development of the Polgár complex cemeteries (Formenkreis 1=Tiszapolgár, Formenkreis 2=Tiszapolgár- Bodrogkeresztúr, Formenkreis 3=Bodrogkeresztúr, with the features of the ceramics from Hunyadihalom). Thus, the two groups that had been differentiated so by their ceramics (Tiszapolgár and Bodrogkeresztúr), in fact existed in the same time period and in geographical proximity

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

„Phasen“ — „Perioden“ — „Zeitscheiben“ Zur Chronologie der spätkupferzeitlichen Nekropolen im Karpatenbecken

This study investigates the relative chronology of the Late Copper Age Baden culture by analysing the pottery of the largest known cemeteries (Alsónémedi, Budakalász, Fonyód-Bézsenypuszta, Balatonlelle-Felső Gamász, Pilismarót-Basaharc and Mezőcsát-Hörcsögös). Altogether 611 ceramic finds from 253 graves were involved in the research. The results presented here are preliminary; all the known Baden cemeteries will be processed in the future

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

Coalescent community at Alsónyék: the timings and duration of Lengyel burials and settlement

First paragraph: The Lengyel culture was very widely distributed in central Europe in the first half of the fifth millennium cal BC. At its greatest extent, its settlements are found in western and north-east Hungary, south-west Slovakia, eastern Austria and the Czech Republic. Its distribution even reached Slovenia and Croatia in the south, and Poland in the north

Peopling the past: creating a site biography in the Hungarian Neolithic

First paragraph: For most regions and for most sequences around the world, prehistorians until now have only been able to assign the past people whom they study to rather imprecise times. Such imperfect chronology is the result of our reliance on radiocarbon dating and a conventional approach to the interpretation of radiocarbon results which relies, basically, on the visual inspection of calibrated dates. Thus, typically, a radiocarbon sample from a few thousand years ago will calibrate to a date spanning 100–200 years (at 2σ). A group of such samples will not produce identical calibrated dates, even when they derive from the same event, and archaeologists visually inspecting a graph of such dates tend to include the extremes of the timespan indicated, and thus considerably exaggerate the duration of a given phenomenon as well as accepting the relative imprecision of its dating (BAYLISS ET AL. 2007).In the European Neolithic there has been a longstanding tradition of inferring chronology by summing, first uncalibrated (OTTAWAY 1973; GEYH / MARET 1982; BREUNIG 1987), and then calibrated (AITCHISON ET AL. 1991) radiocarbon dates. This method similarly tends to produce inaccurate chronologies of exaggerated duration (BAYLISS ET AL. 2007, 9–11). For the fortunate few, in regions with favourable conditions in which timbers are preserved, dendrochronology can provide dates precise to a calendar year and even to a season within a given year, for example among the Pueblo settlements of the American Southwest or the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements on the fringes of the Alps in west and central Europe (e.g. HERR 2001; MENOTTI 2004). In most regions, however, such preservation and such chronologies are exceptional