Folia archeologica 8.
Barkóczi László: Császárkori edényégető telep Bicsérden
Celtic Pottery Kilns 85 Observations have shown that the native burials in East Pannónia reveal two main types of funeral rites. 5 7 One of these is characterised by the use of funeral chariots and tombstones displaying a chariot (henceforth called : chariot burials), 6 3 while in the other type the dead were interred under tumuli. 6 4 The bulk of the chariot burials is distributed over a territory lying north of the Lake Velence and is flanked by the bend of the Danube (north of Budapest). 6 5 The custom has also been reported south of the Lake of Velence but its incidence there is much less numerous, nor do they form a compact regional unit as they appear to do in the northern part. Undoubtedly, the chariot burials point to a type of burial rites that can be attributed to the Eravisci. 6 6 In addition to the chariot burials in East Pannónia, there existed the burial custom of the tumuli from the end of the first, or beginning of the second, centuries onward which shows, however, a difference in geographical distribution over the province. 6 7 The northernmost find-places of tumulus burials, have been encountered near the village Pátka which lies about in one line with the Lake Velence. The custom of tumulus burials must have been prevalent within the square formed by the four towns Székesfehérvár, Pusztaszabolcs, Pécs and Kaposvár. 6 8 The chariot burials do not appear side by side with the tumulus cemeteries north of the Lake Velence ; chariot burials are predominant here while south of this line they are considerably rarer and more dispersed, and when they are seen at all, they occur in company with the tumulus burials. The absence of the tumulus burials north of Pátka cannot be connected with modern intensive agriculture that would have destroyed the mounds since the Hallstatt tumuli have been preserved at Százhalombatta and Pomáz, and so some of the later tumuli from the Roman period might have also remained. Tumulus burial grounds are rather numerous in West Pannónia, while in East Pannónia they are quite obviously more scattered. No such evidence has been forthcoming yet concerning the latter two groups that would point to any geographical continuity having existed between them. About the height of the Lake Balaton, no tumulus burial grounds have been met with in the interior of the province between East and West Pannónia. 6 9 It is a phenomenon worth mentioning that though we know a good number of chariot burial grounds, yet they have so far never been found at the sites of the tumulus burials. 7 0 It can, therefore, be stated with some certainty that the chariot and the tumulus burials are clearly distinct as to their geographical distribution over the province. This points to the assumption that we have to do with two entirely different peoples in these territories at the end of the first century A. D., or the beginning of the next. Since two entirely different burial customs were practised, we must infer that two groups of peoples lived in Eastern Pannónia with entirely different ethnic characters. From this assumption it follows that one of these peoples cannot have been native to these parts, and was thus a „foreign" element at that period. Archeological evidence appears to suggest that this foreign element was the tumulus folk since the tumuli had not appeared earlier than the end of the first century or the beginning of the next. There is another piece of evidence corroborating this assertion that the tumulus folk must be kept distinct from those practising chariot burial rites.
