Múzeumi Füzetek Csongrád 2. (Csongrád, 1999.)

V. SZABÓ Gábor: A bronzkor Csongrád megyében (Történeti vázlat a készülő régészeti állandó kiállítás kapcsán)

THE GÁVA CULTURE AND ITS FORMA TION The Gáva culture spread at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Great Hungarian Plain and Transylvania on a huge territory. Despite of the earlier suggestions connecting the origin with migration, we see the roots of this homogeneous material culture in the uniformization of the regional groups of the Tumulus culture starting in period Reinecke BD. As a result of the process that took place in this time, by period HA2 in the eastern part of the Carpathian basin the uniform character of the big technocomplex of the Gáva and related cultures was formed. As a first step of the uniformization in the local pottery of the mentioned territories (that comes from the Koszider period and transformed in the Tumulus period) more and more cosmopolitan features started to appear like the characteristic profilation of the rims of the vessels, the covering and polishing of the surface by graphite and the exclusive character of the fluted decoration. We can observe the appearance of these elements in Transylvania and Partium in the material of the Igrita culture (CHIDIOSAN-EMŐDI 1982; ANDRITOIU 1992, 69-72), in the late version of the Hajdúbagos-Cehalut group (NÉMETI 1990, 43-53) and in the Läpus I

—II culture (KACSÓ 1975, KACSÓ 1987, 74-75) as well as in the late material of the cemeteries of the Cruceni-Belegis circle that can be found on the territory from the Bánát to East Slavonia (Cruceni II, Bobda I, Belegis II, Surcin: GUMÄ 1993, 150180) and in the late cemeteries of the Piliny culture coloured by late Tumulus culture Caka group elements in North East Hungary (KEMENCZEI 1989,91-92). A similar continuous change went on at the same time in the larger part of Transdanubia in the course of the transformation of the late Tumulus culture into Urnenfelder. The finds of this time — that in the case of the Great Hungarian Plain and Transylvania can be called proto-Gáva period — can be found also in the territory of county Csongrád. Assemblages belonging to this time (their majority unfortunately come from stray finds without documentation) were found on the left bank of Tisza in Szentes-Nagyhegy, Szentes-Belsöecser, Hódmezővásárhely-Batida, Klárafalva and Deszk, and on the right bank in Jánosszállás, Kömpöc (V. SZABÓ 1996,8-1 o, 15-25,28, Fig. 46). The common speciality of the pottery of these sites is the profilation used on the rims and shoulders of the vessels, horizontal and feston shaped fluting on the necks and bellies, and in the case of bowls with outbending rims, cups with handles above the rim and smaller urns, the covering of the surface with graphite varnish (Fig. 13) (v. SZABÓ 1996, 2631). The same features appear in the material of recently excavated pits of the CsongrádFelgyö settlement. New forms and types of decoration appearing in Reinecke BD-HAl period are represented by the following finds: cups with handles (with triangular cross-section) above the rim and omphalos bottom, deep bowls with outbending rim and profiled shoulder, vessels with their surface covered by graphite varnish, fragments of outbending, profiled rims and bowles with rims bending inside. Among the finds from CsongrádFelgyö there appear some specialities that refer to the Gáva culture. Here we can mention the processed clay of large pots, urns, ceramics burned yellow-red inside and bright black outside and wide, vertical chanelling decoration at the belly of large vessels (Fig. 14). The cemetery of Csórva was used in the same period (TROGMAYER 1963). However, its pottery is a little different comparing to the ceramic material of the proto-Gáva assem-