Tárnoki Judit szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 19. (2009)

Természettudomány és régészet - Alice M. Choyke - László Bartosiewicz - Telltale tools from a tell: Bone and antler manufacturing at Bronze Age Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom, Hungary

I Tisicum XIX. Figure 1. The location of Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom in the north of the Great Hungarian Plain. some 30 km to the north of the site (Figure 1). Because there was no sieving at that time on excavations, smaller artifacts may be totally missing from the assemblage. In addition, because sites such as the Jászdózsa tell are complex sites it cannot be assumed that all parts of the site contain the same kinds of tools and ornaments. Most of the excavation units were located in the central tell part of the site, it maybe that proportions of types would look much different if more of the site between the defensive rings had been excavated. In terms of the local geomorphology, this location represents a transitional area between recent alluvial deposits and loess soils. Typically for a prehistoric settlement lying in the marginal regions of river basins, the landscape is terraced by alluvial fans.

6 During the period the site was inhabited was forested and marshy, as the Tarna River and a number of smaller streams such as Ágó (Kotró) and Szarvágy stream formed a network here, often flooding low-lying ground. Understandably, settlements have always occupied natural, slight elevations. Even after river regulations in the 19th century, elevated water tables in years of high precipitation reveal where former flood pools of the Tarna River were located. 6 PÉCSI Mártoné/

al. 1969. Figure 2. The map of Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom drawn by Viktor Hild in 1895 (after Stanczik 1975, Choyke 2005,133). Within this general environment, this tell settlement was established on the banks of a small stream called the Nyavalyka.

7 It began on a small natural elevation, well removed from the flooding that sometimes plagued the area. This location would also have been a particularly rich habitat for wild animals such as red deer and wild boar. In addition, the environmental potentials of the region in terms of the rich wild life may well have opened a window of trading opportunity in skins and antler products for the inhabitants of the settlement after the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age occupation. The settlement might have extended over a maximum area of 500 by 800 m. The oval, inner mound is 5.40 m high, measuring 130 x 60 m. Although, as mentioned previously, most of the excavation work took place in this mound area during the 1960s and 1970s of the last century century, this is a well-known site in the history of Hungarian archaeology. Excavations first took place here in the 19

t

h century and it was at this time that Viktor Hild produced the first map of the site (Figure 2), which clearly shows the three ring ditches surrounding the central mound. The 13.5 m wide zone of habitation layers between the innermost and middle ring contain up to 4 m of habitation 7 STANCZIK, Ilona 1969,1975; STANCZIK, Ilona - TÁRNOKI, Judit 1992. 120. I 358