A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Archaeologica 5. (Szeged, 1999)

SZABÓ Géza: Kora bronzkori leletek Szentes-Várostanya lelőhelyről

EARLY BRONZE AGE FINDS FROM SZENTES-VAROSTANYA Géza SZABÓ Bronze Age finds were rather scarce along the 11 km long investigated section of road 451 near Szentes, constructed during the spring and summer of 1998. However, south of the new bridge over the Kurca. at a distance of some 440-490 m from the 38+870-910 section of the by-pass road, the pits of an Early Bronze Age settlement were identified among the burials of a Conquest period cemetery. These archaeological features could be noted over a 50 m by 50 m sandy area on a north-south levee rising beside a former Kurca channel. These pits, containing very few finds, were found scattered over a 2500 m

2 large area of the 60 000 m

2 large area investigated in the Szentes-Várostanya area. There is a great difference between such sites and sites that are investigated as part of a systematic excavation project in the hope that they will yield rich assemblages. This marked contrast again calls attention to the fact that only the decorated or more spectacular — in other words, the unusual rather than the usual — potteiy finds were collected during earlier archaeological investigations, and that currently accepted views on the distribution and chronology of various cultures are based on this corpus of finds. It is therefore not at all indifferent in terms of methodology, how similarly poor assemblages are and will be evaluated in the future, even more so, since — compared to the number of carefully chosen sites excavated as part of a research project — the number of incidental sites will increase as a result of large-scale construction work. It would appear that in contrast to 'richer' find assemblages from stratified prehistoric settlements uncovered systematically with a series of small trenches, the investigation of extensive areas, although often yielding 'poorer' finds, can contribute to a more detailed picture and a better understanding of the economy, the lifeways and the distribution of various archaeological cultures, especially if the scientific analysis of the find material — made possible by a more generous funding — are also carried out. Instead of the well-definable finds from consciously chosen sites, archaeologists will find themselves increasingly working with finds from randomly identified sites in 'trenches' that traverse the entire country. The low number of pottery finds, as well as of various tools and implements, coupled with the low number of archaeological features, suggests that the Early Bronze Age site identified at Szentes-Várostanya was a seasonal settlement or camp. The animal limb-bones, the antlers and the arrowhead from this site suggest that the levee rising above the Tisza floodplain was occupied by a hunter's group probably made up of men. The flood silts and the stratified fill noted in pit S451L435Q15 perhaps indicates that the camp was visited repeatedly. The small amount of kitchen refuse can perhaps be interpreted to reflect that the prey was not butchered at the camp. The animal limb-bones — the least valuable and most easily removable part of the animals — found at the boundary of the infusion loess may perhaps be interpreted as the remains of sacrifices buried into the loose sand following a successful hunting expedition. Pottery fragments enabling a more precise dating were recovered from three contemporaneous pits (S451L435Q1

2, S451L435Q14 and S451L435Q20). Good analogies to these pottery finds can be found among the Nagyrév assemblages recovered from sites along the Tisza and the Danube. The observations made during the excavation and the finds suggest that the Szentes-Várostanya site was a seasonal camp used by a group of hunters from a larger Early Bronze Age community. The finds, which are paralleled by protoNagyrév finds from sites along the Danube, suggest that the occupants of the site were part of the process which resulted in the emergence of the Nagyrév culture along the Tisza. The finds of the Nagyrév culture are distributed over the area that had been occupied by the Makó population at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age and where Ada type finds later made their appearance, followed by the Pitvaros and Szőreg population groups. Although there is no consensus concerning the interpretation of the Makó and early Nagyrév assemblages, it seems likely from the above that proto-Nagyrév type assemblages had appeared along the Tisza, parallel to the processes along the Danube during the late Makó period. In spite of similarities in the pottery finds, the marked differences in the lifeways of the two population groups argue against a Makó-Somogyvár-based origin for the Nagyrév population. The successive influx of population groups from related southern cultures, migrating along the waterways seems more likely. Smaller groups that were related to the later Nagyrév population probably appeared along the Tisza already in the second half of the Makó period. The 'poorer' finds from the early Nagyrév settlements — as compared to assemblages from the tell settlements — would suggest that these settlements were 'outposts' occupied by small groups of the population which, arriving at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age II period, later practised intensive agriculture on the tell settlements. Beside the loess levees lying beside major rivers, which were suitable for tell settlements, single-layer Nagyrév settlements can be found over a larger area suggesting that the uniform material culture appearing in the archaeological record nonetheless conceals different lifeways within the same population. This seems to be borne out by a series of Nagyrév sites, lying far from the major waterways, in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve (Fig. 5), an area which was formerly considered to have been uninhabited. Besides the strong cultural relations, the differences in lifeways seems to be the explanation of why the period marked by Nagyrév finds outlasted the Pitvaros and, later, the Perjámos period in the Maros area (HORVÁTH, é. n.). As a matter of fact, finds of the Nagyrév culture occur in such high numbers as to exclude the possibility of imports and to imply the survival of Nagyrév groups along the Maros until the commencement of the Middle Bronze Age (HORVÁTH 1985a, 91). Initial research on the Early Bronze I period had suggested that the Makó population had formed a monolithic unit in Hungary. This picture was subsequently refined and