Fitz Jenő (szerk.): Die aktuellen Fragen der Bandkeramik - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 18. A Pannon konferenciák aktái 1. (Székesfehérvár, 1972)

J. Nandris: Kapcsolatok a mérsékelt égőr legkorábbi újkőkora és a vonaldíszes kerámia között

tal context, in which all three operated, and it would be curious if in this respect they did not have elements in common.

Since the events which we wish to consider took place in one geographical and environmental setting, it is a basic requirement to establish what this was. The detailed studies on which such reconstruction must be based are in a rudimentary state over much of the area, but it is essential not to be mislead by the familiar aspect of central and eastern Europe as it presents itself to us today. Few of us can have set eyes in Europe on a „natural” environment, using this to mean a climax vegetation evolved without disturbance to our own time. And if we did so it would not recall that of the Altithermal. The Late Glacial environment combined unfamiliar species in ways quite unfamiliar to us, the Neothermal environment proportionately less so ; but our own landscapes are man made. Nor is it possible to draw more than the broadest conclusions from isolated pollen diagrams since these depend for their interpretation on their context in the vegetational history of the region. The environmental data from any one site represent only a moment in the history of an evolving situation, and it is one of the marks of neolithic man that he initiated that permanent impact on environment which is a cause for concern to us today.

If we consider briefly one of the regions which interest us here, the Tiszántúl east of the Tisza in Hungary, we can see that this change has been as profound as anywhere else. In eastern Hungary the diversity of the pottery types which succeed the Körös and Alföld pottery*11 is very notable, and contrasts with the remarkable homogeneity of the Central European Bandkeramik. On a superficial view the many groups such as Tiszadob, Esztár, Rétközberencs, Szakálhát, Herpály, Tisza, contrast with the apparent uniformity of the Alföld. But the Alföld is neither altogether flat nor uniform ; areas such as those traversed by the meanders of the Tisza have a great deal of local variety. Alice Garnet t,<2) among others, has pointed out that the steppic aspects of Eastern Hungary are attributable to man-made factors in historical times. These include grazing mismanagement, tree felling, and even attempts at agricultural reclamation in the 18th and 19th centuries A. 1)., especially drainage and straightening of the course of the Tisza. This increased run-off and lowered the water table, with the result that many sand pusztas were formed in the 18th century. Forest cover was the invariable sufferer, and Eastern Hungary in the fifth millennium would inevitably have been more heavily forested. One piece of evidence which might

( 1 ) N. KALTCZ — .1. MAKK AY, Die Probleme der Linearbandkeramik im Alföld. AAntArch 10, 1966, 35 — 47.; 1. В. KUTZTÁN, Das Neolithikum in Ungarn. Arch-Au 40, 1966, 249-280.

(2) A. GARNETT, The Loess regains oj Central Europe in Prehistoric Times. GeogrJourn 106, 1945, 132— 143.

contradict this statement, without necessarily invalidating it, is the presence of Equus (Asinus) hydruntinus from the Körös settlement at Hódmezővásárhely— Bodzáspart,(3) and from Ludas—Budzak. This also occurs, however, in the Staréevo levels of Lepenski Vir, in an area where one cannot conceive of true steppe conditions for many kilometres around.

It remains to establish the history of these vegetational changes on a scientific basis. Even today, after several centuries of devastation by man (and in International Conservation Year) “devastation” is perhaps not too strong a term for the effects of such of man’s agents as the goat, the axe or the plough) the superficial monotony of the Great Alföld conceals a picture of great regional variety. The Nyírség (Nyir= Birch) is still more wooden than most areas, and there are considerable woodlands around Debrecen, or near Gyula. The Hortobágy, although now devoid of settlement, had several flourishing villages in the Middle Ages. Its drainage resulted, however, in the formation of alkaline soils and blowing sand. Between Cegléd and Kecskemét in the early nineteenth century blowing sand destroyed standing woodland, and a combination of saline soils, high water table and sand areas ensured that the Duna —Tisza köz remained largely unsuitable for primitive agriculturalists at least until the Bronze Age. It is not so much relief which gives variety and contrast to the Tiszántúl, as conditions of soil and drainage. Within this region one finds the alluvium, ox-bow lakes and meanders of the Tisza ; the alkaline Hortobágy contrasted by the relict Oak forest of Ghat; the sands of the Nyírség by the marshes of Ecsedi láp ; the loesses and chernozems of the Nagykunság with tin1 sands and gravels spread by the Körös and Berettyó between the peat-filled hollows of the Kis-Nárrét.

1 have tried to show in detail elsewhere<4> how a close correlation exists between the Körös settlements of the First Temperate Neolithic and the contours of the water table, the lowering of which since the sixth millennium rather emphasises the siting of Körös settlements on the deepest islands of ground water. This underlines a preference for well-drained soils, most notably in relation to early agriculture. This has been aptly underlined in relation to the Bandkeramik by M о d d e r m a n<ä) (Palaeohistoria VI — VII, 3) when he says: „Besonders wo die Löss einen tiefen Grundwasserstand hat, ist dieser Boden leicht zu bearbeiten.” He goes on to note that within the loess area of the Haspengau in Belgium the Bandkeramik is found in the so-called „dry Haspengau”, but absent from the „wet Haspengau”. The Dutch sites too, or Köln —Lindenthal, are selectively distributed

(3) S. BÖKÖNYT, Eine Pleistozän-eselsart im Neolithikum der Ungarischen Tiefebene. AArchHung 4, 1954, 9-21.

(4) J. G. NANDRIS, Ground Water as a factor in the First Temperate Neolithic settlement of the Körös region. Zbornik Belgrade Nat. Mus. 6,1970.

(5) P. MODDERMAN, Palaeohistoria VI-VII, 3.

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