Gyöngyössy Márton (szerk.): Perspectives on the Past. Major Excavations in County Pest (Szentendre, 2008)

(8th/7th century ВС-tote I st century AD) (1 st**4th centuries AD) (400-454AD) (454-568AD) (568*81 1/829 AD) (895-1 301 AD) (1301-1526/1686)

Following a trial excavation in Autumn 2002 in an area known as Malomkert, a salvage excavation was conducted in Spring 2003, in the area of the planned recreation park.

A 2000 m2 large area was investigated on the gently sloping hill facing the Damásdi Stream. Seventy-five settlement features of a Neolithic settlement occupied by a community of the Transdanubian Linear Pottery culture were uncovered. In addition to storage and refuse pits, small sunken ovens, clay extraction pits and post-holes of one-time buildings were excavated. The finds include pottery sherds representing the earlier Linear Pottery period, although most finds can be assigned to the culture’s Notenkopf and Zseliz group.

The finds are dominated by pottery fragments, partly coming from coarse, thick-walled household wares tempered with chaff, and partly from carefully made, thin-walled, polished vessels decorated in a variety of ways. Common ornamental elements include handles modelled in the shape of animal heads, portrayed either in a stylised or in a more realistic form. Quern stones used for grinding cereals, small clay loom weights, various stone tools and implements, and bone tools (needles, awls, spatulas) represent the relics of daily life.

The more unusual finds are represented by round clay pendants, probably worn as amulets, and hand and foot shaped handles, which had probably been part of zoomorphic vessels or figurines.

1. Clay pendant fragment

2. Hand shaped vessel handle

3. Animal head shaped vessel handles

4. Bone tools

5. Foot shaped fragments

6. Oval quern stone with the grinding stone

7. Sunken oven with stones under the baking plate for heat retention

• Klára Kővári

*4' ‘ i i

Л settlement of the Transdanubian i Linear Pottery culture at Szob