Agria 39. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2003)
Domboróczki László: Radiokarbon adatok Heves megye újkőkori régészeti lelőhelyeiről
most cases the graves are pointed in the same direction as, or at right angles to, the house. Burials belonged to the cultic sphere of people's lives. It is therefore questionable whether practical reasons alone account for orientation. There may well have been traditional or religious factors as well. For the time being it is sufficient to note that this particular orientation is believed to have been preferred not only by the people of the Körös Culture but by late Neolithic peoples as well. 33 Looking once again at the way settlements were arranged, one should look at the tradition of building houses next to those of one's ancestors. This must have been an important element in people's lives and one which deserves consideration. It was a custom with an ancient history, as can be seen in Körös Culture linear settlements 34 and on ALP sites as well. 35 The houses of the period, the pits of which provide us with the evidence, are not only all orientated in the same direction they are also equidistant from one another. This may explain why we don't see tells taking shape. One of the most important prerequisites for the development of tells was that houses be built on the very site of no-longer existing buildings (which had fallen into disrepair, burnt down or been destroyed) and not built from scratch next to them. During the ALP period things clearly didn't happen like that. The reason cannot be traced back to the smaller clay consumption for the buildings, as proved by the examples at Krasznokvajda and Mezőkövesd, 36 nor a desire for shorter dwellings or smaller settlements, 37 rather it was deliberate and based on a deeply held conviction as to what a settlement should look like. 38 Thus, when an area was settled there would have been regulations which had to be adhered to. At the same time, when looking at the way houses were built we can also see traditional elements. How otherwise could the pits have been the same shape everywhere, if there hadn't been strict rules regulating the form they took? If a pit was only really required for the extraction of clay in quantities sufficient for the daubing of houses and the making of the first set of ceramic utensils why did they dig a long hole, digging up unnecessarily large quantities of humus in the process? Wouldn't it have been sufficient to dig a deeper round pit, especially when one considers that clay gets finer the deeper you dig? Instead, not only did they dig long clay pits they dug them in specific places. Apart from being some aspect of a ritual relating to the construction of the house, the creation of their microcosmos, what other reason could there have been? Apart from the practising of old customs, the invocation of ancestors and potent powers to ensure success 33 As regards the orientation of graves, they most frequently point in an E-W direction (with slight deviations): TROGMAYER Ottó 1969. 13. The house at Tiszajenő stood on a NW-SE axis (SELMECZI László 1969. 18.), whilst most of the Szolnok-Szanda houses were oriented WNWESE (KALICZ Nándor-RACZKY Pál 1981a. 14.). Based on the map of the Endrőd-Öregszőlők site (MAKKAY János 1992. 150.) graves 1-4 and 13, as well as the longish pits, are all orientated either NW-SE or square on in a NE-SW direction. 34 A. Sherrat mentions sites as long as 2km in length (SHERRAT 1983a, 23.) 35 DOMBORÓCZKI László 1997c. maps. 36 Mezőkövesd-Mocsolyás: KALICZ Nándor-KOÓS Judit 1997a. 133., Krasznokvajda: LOSITS Ferenc 1980. ill. 16. 37 There are some absolutely tiny tells, for example at Öcsöd-Kováshalom (RACZKY Pál 1987. 63.), where the size of the centralised settlement is smaller than a hectare, and the length of the period of settlement not much longer than at Gubakút (HERTELENDI Ede ET AL. 1998. 661.). Here, however, they renewed the houses on the same spot (RACZKY Pál 1987. 64-67.). 38 MAKKAY János 1982a. 108-110. 19
