Somogyvári Ágnes – V. Székely György szerk.: A Barbaricum ösvényein… A 2005-ben Kecskeméten tartott tudományos konferencia előadásai - Archaeologia Cumanica 1. (Kecskemét, 2011)
Mária Hajnalová: Bread of Sarmatians on the Danube, or evidence of arable farming at the site of Harta-Gátőrház (Bács-Kiskun County) in the Roman Period
MÁRIA HAJNALOVÁ: A SZARMATÁK KENYERE A DUNÁNÁL 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 100 90 80 70 60 cultivated plants wild plants charcoal • percentage • frequency Fig. 2 Harta-Gátőrház, closer identified remains of cereals. First column - percentages for individual species (n=2.469), the second column - ubiquity (100%=48 samples) 2000 500 0 grain det. grain de!.? grain indet. straw Fig. I a - Harta-Gátőrház, numbers of finds for main plant categories; b - number of finds of main cereal categories. Millet (Panicum miliaceum), found in smaller quantities, was still present in fifty percent of the samples (Fig. 2). Grains of spelt wheat (Triticum spelta) and oat (Avena sp.) were very sporadic. Emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) and rye (Secale cereale) were extremely rare. Chaff remains of bread/macaroni wheat, spelt, barley and rye were generally present in very low numbers. In total, there were only 39 chaff remains, found in only 10 samples. Straw fragments found in 22 samples were much more numerous (258). Archaeobotanical data from Harta-Gátőrház represents one of the very few Sarmatian assemblages known from the territory of Hungary to date. 1 0 For better understanding of its significance, published information from the territory of Transdanubia, Alföld and southwest Slovakia is briefly summarised (Fig. 3, 4). In Transdanubia archaeobotanical data comes mostly from Roman provincial military forts, civilian towns or villa rusticae. This is the most biased group, however, as it mostly represents individual finds taken by the exca10 cf. Gyulai 2001, 146-148 vators from the fill of various ceramic vessels, graves/ cremations, and rarely from settlements. 1 1 There is very little archaeobotanical knowledge about the local autochthonous ("Celtic") population from this area 1 2. From south-western Slovakia, data from a Roman military fortress and Roman town situated directly on Limes Romanum, as well as Barbarian (Germanic) settlements closest to the frontier are shown below. 13 (Also shown are Barbarian - Celtic, Germanic and Sarmatian - sites of the Great Hungarian Plain) 1 4. Summarising the published data, the main difference between the plant food economy of Panonnia province and its neighbouring Barbarian territories is in cultivation of wheat types (Fig. 3a, 3b). Dominance of free threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum/durum), found at most of the Pannonian Roman provincial towns, villas and military forts is, as in the western part of the European Limes, interpreted as Roman influence. 1' In the territories outside Pannónia, hulled types, spelt (Triticum spelta ) in the north and emmer (Triticum dicoccum) in the west, are the most common wheats. A similar trend of utilisation of hulled emmer wheat is observed at the sites with an autochthonous population within the province 1 6. While wheat represents the main bread cereal of the Roman army and urban population in Pannónia, barley (Hordeum vulgare var. vulgare) is often noted as animal fodder or food of the poor. In the province, although found at a number of archaeological sites, 11 Dálnoki 1998, Dalnoki, Jacomet 2001, Gyulai 1997, Hartányi 1976, Hartányi, Nováki 1975,1976 12 cf. Hartányi 1976, Hartányi, Nováki 1975,1976 13 cf. Hajnalová E, 1989, Hajnalová, Varsik, 2010 14 cf. Gyulai 2001, 148 15 Gyulai 2001, Kreuz 2005 16 Gyulai 2001 163
