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

Természettudomány és régészet - Horváth Tünde - Pattintással készült eszközök kronológiai szerepe a kora- és középső bronzkor folyamán

Tisicum XIX. Tünde HORV

ÁTH The Chronological Role of Chipped Stone Implements in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages Resume This selective publication of materials and the conclusions based on them demonstrate that the chipped stone industry of Hungary in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages was rather diverse, but still characteristic. The Koszider period concluding the Middle Bronze Age was the last period in prehistory, when stone implements played a significant role in everyday and cultic life. The simultaneous use of stone and bronze objects with the same form is clearly observable, followed by a change in the raw material used and the shape of the objects, resulting in a drastic decrease of the number of chipped stone implements in subsequent periods. While the northern and eastern region is characterized by a lithic industry based on small implements, mainly blades, made of local raw materials (obsidian, flint, Mezőzombor flint, hydroquartzite from the vicinity of Tokaj), Transdanubia is dominated again by local raw materials (Szentgál and Transdanubian radiolarites, Tevel and Sümeg flint), but the range of forms used cannot be determined yet. In the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, central Hungary is characterized by a chipped stone industry using uniform raw material and implement forms throughout the Bell BeakerCsepel-Nagyrév-Vatya sequence, which reflects cultural continuity as well. This industry was based on a splintertechnology and smaller and mid-sized, flake-based, bifacially worked implements. There are a few implement types and raw materials, which were distributed in large areas of the country (except southern, northern and western Transdanubia, which are unknown in this respect), and have wide-ranging connections with the Carpathian cultures of the period. Within the cultures under study here, we cannot discern types that were characteristic only for the Early or the Middle Bronze Age. Consequently, we may assume that there was no break or innovation between the chipped stone industries of the two periods, and the previous forms were still manufactured in basically unchanged form, in slightly larger numbers and with a slightly better technique. In the case of certain lead-types and raw materials (like arrowheads with concave base, large knife blades, Krummessers, saws (part of sickle), and Buda hornstone), an industrial tradition reaching back to the Middle/Late Copper Age, and perhaps even a biological anthropological continuity. At present, we know very little about the chipped stone industries of the periods following the Koszider phase. Although stone implements have been found at later settlements as well, their amount is too small to draw any conclusions about them. Still, I do think that the very characteristic lithic industry of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages started to decline, and then disappeared, after the Koszider period. In the case of metallurgy, studied in much more detail than the lithic material, the continuity of many types has been demonstrated, and the same might be true for chipped stone implements. The presence of certain characteristic chipped stone implements shows close ties with similar metal types, which were later, however, manufactured in a different shape. In the case of arrowheads, stone and bronze forms coexisted for a short time, but later on only the bronze variants remained in use. A similar change might be observed with regard to points, knives and sickles or harvesting implements. An explanation should also be found for the intensive use of saws as implements for wheat processing. We should also examine beside chipped stone implements those stone grinding tools that were manufactured by polishing and carving, and appear in large numbers at the settlements of the periods under study, especially at Vatya settlements. The large ratio of stone implements connected to agriculture from the settlements of the Vatya culture deserves special attention, since it clearly demonstrates the importance of this sector of the economy. In my opinion, agriculture and wheat cultivation reached a level in this period, which enabled the accumulation of agricultural surplus. This surplus formed the socio-economic basis for the expansion of the Vatya culture, during which the sandy region in the DanubeTisza interfluve, less suitable for agricultural production, became densely populated as well, as shown by the increased number of large cemeteries. Unfortunately, settlements and often cemeteries as well - are hard to identify with the necessary accuracy, but we may assume that the occupation of the area started in phase I of the culture, in contrast to István Bóna's previous opinion, dating this expansion to phase II of the culture. The, possibly anthropogenic, sand inflow in the Danube-Tisza interfluve had already started in this period. Although according to István Bóna, this area had not previously been occupied by any prehistoric culture, certain areas, like those close to water, could have been occupied or exploited (e.g. wood). Geographical factors, however, enabled only animal husbandry in the region. The Vatya population living in this area probably received supplementary? - agricultural products from the core distribution area of the culture west of the Danube, which had very fertile arable land. Wheat surplus, however, could have been I 432