A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 41. - 1999 (Nyíregyháza, 1999)

Régészet - Mikhailo Potushniak: A multilevel settlement on Mala Hora at Mukachevo/Munkács–Kishegy

A multilevel settlement on Mala Hora at Mukachevo/Munkács-Kishegy Mikhailo Potushniak The settlement is situated at the southern suburb of the town of Mukachevo, on the way to village Berezinka/Nyírhalom. The site of Mala Hora (Little Hill) is the northern part of a ridge of hills, the edge of the most southern end of the Carpathians spreading as long as 15 km from Mukachevo to village Drisino/ Dercén, where it transforms into the Tisza (Transcarpathian) Lowland. The 30 m high (above the lowland surrounding it) Mala Hora has got a plain top in the form of an irregular ellipse or a show sole. According to K. Berniakovich its sizes are the following: it is about 1 km long in north-south direction, and 200-300 m wide in east-west direction. From west and east the hill has steep sides. From the north there is a stone-quarry opened probably after the war. At the western foot of the site we find Koropec, a swampy brook that used to be a relatively wide river in the ancient times. To-date the top of the Mala Hora is covered by a forest. The site was discovered in 1877 and investigated in the following period almost each year until 1913 by T. Lehoczky. He published a series of articles on the excavations inArchaeologiai Értesítő (LEHOCZKY 1895.315, LEHOCZKY 1896.304, LEHOCZKY 1910.159). Some results of his investigations were summarized in his two-volume monograph (LEHOCZKY 1892.104107, LEHOCZKY 1912.12-13). We find more concrete information on the investigation of the Mala Hora in Lehoczky's field notes (Régészeti jegyzeteim - "My archaeological notes"), where data on the excavations of 1877-1908 can be learned.

' T. Lehoczky considered the settlement of Mala Hora to be Neolithic. German archaeologist P. Reinecke who studied the finds from here defined it as a one belonging to the Linear Pottery ('Bandkeramik'). He published some illustrations of the collection (REINECKE 1896.293, Abb. B). In 1929 in the frames of material and methodological assistance given to the new Lehoczky Museum in Mukachevo by the National Institute of Archaeology in Prague, a Czech archaeologist J. Böhm conducted 1.1 thank I. Kobal' who supplied me with the data from the diary of Lehoczky's excavation on the Mala Hora. Manuscript "My archaeological notes I—IV" is kept in the Archive of the Transcarpathian Museum of Local History under the inventory number 143-145.7356. excavations together with I. Jankovich. The top of the Mala Hora was covered by a young oak-wood, so the settlement was investigated by test trenches in different sectors. A concentration of pottery was experienced only in one of them in a small pit filled with cultural deposit. The results of the excavations were described in a short report by J. Böhm (BÖHM 1929.). Böhm considered the settlement on Mala Hora to be a one-level site and after the periodization of F. Tompa put it between the end of the Bükk (I, II, III) Culture and the beginning of the Lengyel (I, II) Culture and dated it to the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. In the opinion of J. Böhm the settlement on Mala Hora was not suitable for further scientific investigation because of the serious damage of the cultural layer and the secondary forestation of the territory. According to J. Böhm the old wood was cut out in the time of the discovery of the site and it helped T. Lehoczky to find the site and begin its excavation. However, at the beginning of the 1920s the territory of the site became again covered by a wood. Small scale test excavations were conducted in 1934 by the Zatlukal brothers. They dated the settlement to the end of the Neolithic and put it to the Tisza Culture of the NE part of the Carpathian basin (i.e. the UpperTisza region). The Zatlukal brothers noticed that the pottery of this settlement bears the elements characteristic for a number of other cultures, among them to the Tisza and Baden ones (ZATLUKAL-ZATLUKAL 1937.26-49.) In 1948 the site was investigated by K. Berniakovich in order to define its conditions and the character of the cultural layer. There were 7 test trenches made in different parts of the settlement. On the basis of the archaeological material found here the excavator considered the site to be a one-level settlement and dated it to the transition period between the Late Neolithic and Copper Age without a clear definition of the cultural attribution (BERNIAKOVICH 1952.37-47., BERNIAKOVICH 1966.163-169.). When we studied his finds it came out that he collected material of different periods. The survived pottery is very fragmentary. Beside the Late Neolithic pottery there are fragments of Late Hallstatt and Mediaeval ceramics which were, for some reason, considered to be Copper Age by the author (BERNIAKOVICH 1966. ris.

2.2-3, 3.17-18.). A Jósa András Múzeum Évkönyve XLI. 1999. 9-36. 9