Múzeumi Füzetek Csongrád 2. (Csongrád, 1999.)

HORVÁTH László András – H. SIMON Katalin: Csongrád város története (A kezdetektől a vaskor végéig)

THE HISTORY OF CSONGRÁD FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF THE IRON AGE (SUMMARY) László András HOR VÁTH - Katalin H. SIMON PALEOLITHIC Studying the Paleolithic age we find a strange contradiction: this is the longest period of the history of the mankind, while we have hardly any data on it from the territory of the Great Hungarian Plain. The research of the age is difficult because in the course of the several hundred thousand years passed since the Paleolithic Age, the finds got covered by a 5-6 m thick — or sometimes even thicker — layer of soil. According to the 1 C (radiocarbon) dating the Middle Paleolithic sites in Hungary existed 46 000-36 000 years ago. That means that comparing to the long period of the Paleolithic they existed for a relatively short time. A flint chip from Csongrád-Felgyő can be considered the oldest Paleolithic find. Gyula László dated it to the Middle Paleolithic Mousterien culture, but thought it to be questionable. However, the existence of a Middle Paleolithic settlement could be proved only by a large scale excavation. MESOLITHIC In South Alföld we do not know any traces of settlements from the Mesolithic. This fact is significant mainly from the aspect of the formation of the Neolithic cultures. It can be suggested that in the several hundred thousand years preceding the Neolithic, the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain was desolated and this vacuum caused by the lack of population attracted the agricultural tribes coming from the south. NEOLITHIC During the several hundred thousand years of the Paleolithic, people's way of life can be characterised exclusively as fishing, hunting and plant-gathering. During this time they gathered a lot of knowledge on their environment, the nature that surrounded them. It could play its role in the historic change which is known in archaeology as the process of Neolithisation. Climatic changes that happened around 10 000 B.C., a slow warming made