Horváth Attila – H. Tóth Elvira szerk.: Cumania 4. Archeologia (Bács-Kiskun Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei, Kecskemét, 1976)

Korek J.: Előszó

PREFACE CUMANIA, the almanac of the museum organization of the Bács-Kiskun County Council, completed its first „round" and presents itself with a volume of archeological profile again. This essay collection, being the yearbook of the museum organization now, started with clear aims concentrating on the most generally represented branches of humanities studied in the museums as archeology, ethnography, history of the modern and recent times including the problems of settlement, art and cultural history. It chose a specialized form of publishing in order to disseminate the results of recent research among the Hungarian specialists and interested public on the one hand, and to come up to the differentiated demands of the international research on the other, and to secure the continuation of the well-established exchanges particularly in the field of the development of scientific libraries. It was obvious already at the start of this almanac that the succession of the volumes would be determined by the results of the research. This means that there is no obligatory rotation, and this fact constantly stimulates the museum organization to keep the almanac on a high level, particularly from the viewpoint of the contents. One can certainly be glad seeing the articles of this fourth volume which describe archaeological finds of the County or those which are in close connections with the local material. CUMANIA has no traditions going back to two decades or more like the yearbooks of other counties but the articles already published or being in print in it prove three important facts. The first is that the region between the Danube and Tisza rivers has given economic chance to such communities which practised first of all animal husbandry within the peasant way of life, and therefore settlements of this type are particularly common here. Not pure accident or the insufficiency of the research cause that most of the sites of the region are connected with peoples which lived the half-nomadic way of life, with the history of Sarmatians, Avars, conquering Hungarians and Cumanians, the last ones absorbad by Hungarians in medieval times. This reflects also in the articles because the periods mentioned above give the the main part of the volumes. But this fact does not mean that the region was not important from the viewpoint of settlement history, also in earlier times, only its characteristics were different what requires a more thorough elucidation. In order to prove it is enough to go through the list of the archaeological explorations carried out in the county between 1960 and 1971 published in the first volume of CUMANIA This convincingly demonstrates that the region has been populated depending on the economic form on the sandy or harder grounds since the late period of the Paleolithic. The other fact is that in spite of the richness of the region in archaeological finds the historical source material hidden in the ground becomes public property only in that case if it gets into public collections. In order to realize it the best way is the systematic excavation work, and the further development of the consequent salvage excavation service to save the archaeological finds coming to light during agricultural activities. Our state prescribes the duties in laws and decrees but we have to make them effective doing more for the salvation of our endangered finds. The conscious initiative to explore the past of the region which started in Kecskemét more than three quarters of a century ago has extended over the whole county. The source material has been multiplied not only quantitatively, and the fact that it can base on authen9