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

Természettudomány és régészet | exchanged with more distant areas as well, indeed it could have been used as one of the main exported goods of the Vatya culture. Exchanged commodities probably included metal and lithic raw materials, but archaeologically invisible materials, like salt, could also have played an important role. It is remarkable, that although the culture - due to its central location - had good exchange relations with all neighbouring cultures (imported vessels and metal objects), no wagon or wheel models have yet been found in its territory, which are attested - even if not in large numbers - in the material of these other cultures. This, of course, does not imply the lack of knowledge of the horse, the wagon and traction, since cheek-pieces of horse bits and strap-crossings are known from Vatya settlements. It can, however, imply the dominance of other means of transport (e.g. riverine). It is probable that long distance exchange was carried out not on land, but riverine, routes, the main axis of which was the Danube and its tributaries, controlled in the Carpathian Basin by the Vatya culture. Already the formation of the Nagyrév culture was connected to the Danube, and Vatya settlements follow this tendency as well (the emergence of the culture is usually explained by the blending of Kisapostag and Nagyrév elements along the Danube, and later, in the Koszider period, the northernmost significant settlement, Solymár-Mátyásdomb, and the southernmost one, HajósHildpuszta, and the settlements in between are all aligned to the Danube or its tributaries). This settlement structure is modified by other factors than the mode and direction of trade as well, like the economic life, plant cultivation and animal husbandry of the culture. Lithic raw materials and implements under study here, however, had always been present in the background of these processes and formed and organic part of these cultures. 433 I