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

Florin GOGÂLTAN: The Southern Border of the Otomani Culture

esting suggestion — which has been neglected by most scholars dealing with this problem — was proposed by M. Roska who believed that this settlement should be assigned to the Vatina culture (ROSKA 1941. 271). In view of his vast experience in field research and his thorough knowledge of the archaeological assemblages from western Romania, his opinion should not be taken lightly. Neither should we forget that he was the one who began the excavation of sites such as Periam, Pecica, Otomani and Varsánd. D. Popescu noted that other cultural elements could be identified at Socodor, but in his opinion the Socodor site could, in view of its obvious connections with the Värsand-Movila dintre vii tell, be assigned to the Otomani culture, together with the finds from Värsand (POPESCU 1956a. 77). From his analysis of the older finds from the VärsandMovila dintre vii tell housed in the Museum of Békéscsaba, I. Bona concluded that the settlement was a site of the Gyulavarsánd culture and he also included the Socodor tell among the typical sites of this culture (BANNER-BÓNA 1974. 70-80; BONA 1975. 121-144; BONA 1992. 30-32). Following D. Popescu and I. Bona, both outstanding scholars of the Bronze Age of the Carpathian Basin, Socodor was regarded as a representative settlement of the Otomani (or Gyulavarsánd) culture. My interest in the Socodor site was aroused by M. Roska's opinion that it can be assigned to the Vatina culture. When studying the pottery assemblages of the Cornesti-Crvenka culture from the Banat region, I was surprised to see that a high number of finds from Socodor were included in this group. In view of the pottery analysis presented in the above, we must now address the question of whether the Socodor-Cäväjdia settlement should be assigned to the Corne§ti-Crvenka group or the Otomani culture. It is my belief that the high ratio of southern ornamental motifs and forms most certainly indicate that this tell should be linked to the CornestiCrvenka cultural province.

19 However, it is important to emphasize that the site lies on the periphery of this province, where it obviously came into contact with communities from which the Otomani culture later evolved. The Varçand-Movila dintre vii site was also a peripheral settlement, a fact which accounts for the differences between the pottery finds from the Vârçand tell and the assemblages from the Berettyó (Barcäu) valley and the Er valley. The location of the Värsand settlement at the border of the Otomani culture province — relatively far from the centre of this culture — is another argument for rejecting the Gyulavarsánd (Vârçand) culture label. It seems to me that there are several reasons why it is difficult to establish the southern border of the Otomani cultural province: (1) the early state of research; (2) the mobility of prehistoric communities which can only be tentatively identified in a limited area using archaeological techniques; (3) the difficulties in identifying the cultural interrelations of peripheral settlements; (4) ethnographic analogies suggest that the territorial borders between prehistoric communities were usually marked by a river, a hill, a forest, a swamp or even a tree, etc. — however, these can rarely be identified using archaeological methods. One point that nonetheless emerges clearly even at the current state of research is that the Criçul Alb river probably marked the border between the Otomani and Corne§ti-Crvenka cultures,

20 as evidenced by the similarities and differences between the pottery of the Socodor and Värsand settlement — the former lying south, the latter north of the Cri§ul Alb river.

21 Edited by Magdaléna Seleanu 19 A number of my Romanian colleagues have also culturally attributed the Socodor tell to the Cornesti-Crvenka group. Cp. GUMÂ 1997, 43; CIUGUDEAN 1997a, cat. nos 145-155, 20 Another settlement indicating contact between the two culture provinces is the Chisindia-La Podul Vechi site (DUDAS

1975). 21 The paper was reviewed by Gábor V. Szabó. 1 acknowledge his work and wish to thank it.