M. Járó - L. Költő szerk.: Archaeometrical research in Hungary (Budapest, 1988)
Analysis - BARTOSIEWICZ László: Water-sieving experiment at örménykút, site 54
BAR TOSÍEWICZ László* WATER-SIEVING EXPERIMENT AT ÖRMÉNYKÚT, SITE 54 Abstract - Quantitative analysis was carried out on water-sieved material retrieved at the 910th century butchering site of Örménykút 54. Bone fragments from a 1.8 m 3 sample of backdirt were categorized by size (0.5 to 6.5 cm) in order to estimate the reliability of the method. The efficiency of refinement at various levels (hand-collection, 2.5 and 0.8 mm mesh size) was measured by the regression between the number of fragments in individual size intervals and the size of bone fragments. Introduction The village of örménykút, located in the centre of the Carpathian Basin, is a major focal point of current settlement research in Hungary. One of the surrounding sites, No. 54, revealed settlement remains from the 9— 10th centuries and included a concentrated deposit of animal bones which turned out to be an early Medieval butchering site. Such a rare feature is interesting enough in and of itself because of its chronological context. In addition to the archaezoological study of the material, however, it offered an excellent opportunity for the cost/benefit type analysis of a water-sieving experiment. In fact, the zoological data are beyond the focus of this paper. The size distribution of small bones, on the other hand, served as a homogeneous and standardized data set for quantifying this method's efficiency. Previous research Although its importance has long been demonstrated in the literature (Payne 1972, 1975; Levitán 1979, Bartoàewicz 1983), water-sieving is not among the most popular excavation techniques in Hungary. While the evidence of field data should encourage excavators (especially when microfaunal assemblages or small artifacts are sought after), practical aspects are considered less attractive. Large scale water-sieving is likely to somewhat restructure if not increase the budget of an excavation. This is why it is necessary to recognize the optimum point for this technique, as well as the ranges of efficient use of the method. Such information is sporadic in the literature, but may contribute to the successful decision making at the site, should the necessity of watersieving arise. One word of warning^ however. Water-sieving is just another way of trying to improve the quality of excavation data. The moral and scientific value of additional finds should not be quantified in terms of labour expenditure or time investment. Any results of this paper should exclusively outline the improvement of probabilities involved when hand collection is supported by more refined recovery techniques. Material and method As was mentioned in the introduction, this find material offered a special opportunity for the relatively accurate measurement of the efficiency of hand collection versus water-sieving. During the course of field work it is relatively difficult to eliminate a * Archaelogocial Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences H-1250 Budapest, Uri u. 49.
