Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 12. 1971 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1972)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen. A Pannonia Konferenciák aktái, I. – Akten der Pannonia Konferenzen I. - Nandris, John: Relations between the Mesolithic, the First Temperate Neolithic, and the Bandkeramik: the Nature of the Problem. – Kapcsolatok a mérsékelt égöv legkorábbi újkőkora és a vonaldíszes kerámia között. XII, 1971. p. 61–70.

on the middle river terraces, and in general the Bandkeramik association with loess is selective. Nor is the „Loess" itself a unitary category. In eastern Hungary the groundwater correlation gives meaning to the very general absence of sites from the right bank of the Tisza, and from the Duna — Tisza-köz in genral. Where there are early sites, as at Sövényháza, Sövényháza-kőtörés, or round the Ludvár lakes they can often be correlated with quite localised areas of deep water table.

(6) Even the Bronze Age cemetery, and probable settlement, at Szőreg shows that this marked correlation (in this case with a very restricted 10 metre deep island of the water table) holds true for later periods.

(7) We cannot go on to consider the detailed regional ecology of all the areas covered by the Bandkeramik. It is enough to emphasise the importance of regional factors within the broad pattern. It is not in general difficult, even without direct palaeobotanical evidence, to envisage much more extensive woodland, particularly oak forest, during the Altithermal period. In the case of the Tiszántúl this contributed to the regional variety, basically expressed in drainage and soils. It may be possible on this basis to account for the very rapidly apparent diversity of its pottery types, by postulating relatively localised human groups, perhaps ultimately mesolithic. The correlation of pottery differences with such groups does remain to be demonstrated, but the possibility of mesolithic relationships is one which must be considered, since it bears on the whole European scene at this period. * * * Before considering what might be involved in this possibility let us look very briefly at the First Temperate Neolithic phenomenon. This is the first neolithic found in any zone of the world with a temperate climate and vegetation, certainly the first in temperate Europe. It is in some senses an important precursor of the Bandkeramik. Since it begins in the sixth millennium and continues during the early fifth millennium it precedes the Bandkeramik in time. The cultural groups involved are well enough known under the names of the Körös, Cris, Starcevo, Kremikovci and Karanovo I/II; but the time has come to view this unified phenomenon as a whole. We cannot do this in detail here

(8) but some essential points for the present argument may be set out. The Greek neolithic

(9) was firmly established in the sixth millennium. The so-called PPN phase is mis-tit(6) J. G. NANDRTS, The Prehistoric Archaeology of South East Europe with special reference to Neolithic Figurines. Ph. D. Dissertation, Cambridge University 1968, 289-296.; A. RÓNAY, Az Alföld talajvíz térképe. Budapest 1961. (7) J. G. NANDRIS, о. c, Zbornik 6, 1970. (8) ID., The Prehistoric Archaeology of South East Europe . . . (9) ID., The Development and Relationships of the earlier Greek Neolithic. Man, June 1970. led in several respects. It is known to have substantial amounts of pottery, and its neolithic economy seems to be introduced from elsewhere, fully formed. The meaning of the true PPN phenomenon, as found in the Near East, surely lies in the fact that it represents a differentiation of local mesolithic economy by successive evolutionary stages, until a full variant of neolithic domestic economy emerges. This cannot yet be said to be attested in Greece. At any rate, after a phase of early monochrome pottery in eastern Greece a period of Decorated Wares ensues, still during the sixth millennium. It is during this period that definite relationships can be first observed with the First Temperate area. These are particularly seen in the Vardar-Morava region, and they continue into the Sesklo period around 5000 В. C. or later. They are documented by various distributions, and it must be emphasised that they represent a period of perhaps twenty generations of diffusion and village settlement — not an instant of migration up a „route" from the Mediterranean. But most important, they imply the translation and adaptation of an economic mode from a Mediterranean environment to a temperate one. Again, as in Greece, there is at present no good evidence that the differentiation of a native mesolithic economy underlies the formation of the First Temperate Neolithic. It will be realised that on the basis of the available evidence one can say the same of the Bandkeramik economy, or indeed of the British neolithic. In this sense Greece, the First Temperate Neolithic and the Bandkeramik present the same picture, whatever evidence may be forthcoming in the future. Having clarified the situation thus far we are in a position to seek the antecedent stages of all these groups, and there is no doubt that they will soon be forthcoming. The Körös group is an important part of the whole First Temperate phenomenon. It has a number of early, if isolated, radiocarbon determinations, and about a third of the known First Temperate sites come from the region, together with high proportions of some of the most distinctive traits of the First Temperate Neolithic. It is by no means certain that it represents a late stage of the First Temperate, as in the conventional view which places it on typological grounds as the last of a series of Starcevo developments. It is certain that it represents an important riverine adaptation to the Tisza— Körös basins. While there is as yet little to link it with any mesolithic in this region we can at least remember the connections with rivers and lakes (with the Tisza or at Lake Ludas for example) characteristic of much of the European mesolithic at this stage. We can note that it is a distinctive aggregation of settlements which, to the north (on the upper Tisza), abut on an area in which phenomena like the Alföld Bandkeramik emerge. It merges in the south with sites conventionally attributed to the Starcevo. The relations between them can be seen at least as far south as Grabovac south of the Sava near Obrenovac, at Donja Branjevina in the Backa, or at Kozluk in the Banat. In the successors of these Körös and Starcevo sites riverine adap63