Istvánovits Eszter (szerk.): A nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum Évkönyve 57. (Nyíregyháza, 2015)
Régészet - I Nagy Márta: Egy késő bronzkori település szerkezetének bemutatása Nyíregyháza-Oros, Mega Park lelőhelyről. Előzetes jelentés
L. Nagy Márta 3. Apart from the metal finds of the hoards, the site provided an extremely rich bronze find collection. Judging from this, we can count with serious metallurgic activity here. No traces of workshop came to light, so we can suggest the existence of a trade and distribution centre. In the course of research of similar Late Bronze Age settlements of similar organisation in the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain, it was suggested that there were parts of settlements functioning as “deposition zones”. They could exist synchronously or partly overlapping each other in time, living side by side. These zones were less populated than the nearby village with a serious number of inhabitants that also could have had its own, smaller deposition territory. In my opinion, the site of Mega Park can be classified as the latter case. In the site ofNyíregyháza-Oros, “Úr-Csere” mostly synchronous with Mega Park and situated very close to, the settlement was also encircled by a ditch, but its sacral and metallurgy activity is modest. So, the population of the Mega Park site must have had a more serious role, possibly, another function differing from the “Úr-Csere” site. For the time being, we cannot determine the social attribution of certain settlement units. However, the places, number and richness of the hidden hoards, pottery specific for the layers, serious metallurgic activity refer to a leading group that - probably, due to its economic power - was capable of centralised ruling of the local population, of coordinating the economy and, in all probability, the religious life. Researchers of the Csanádpalota site got to a similar conclusion. According to them, the earthwork found there could have been the elite’s centre of the period. In the environment of the settlement in question several also Late Bronze Age (Hajdúbagos-Cehalut Group - proto-Gáva Period) settlements came to light. Some of them was recorded during field walks, another part is known from excavations. After mapping them it can be well seen (Fig. 1. 5) that these sites cover the sand ridge running in north-south direction east of the present Nyíregyháza-Oros. These are villages inhabited by large communities and smaller farms founded in their environment. To-date, several researchers think that the settlement network of the age can be characterised not by the earlier hierarchic system, but by a heterarchic/net like model of relations. The site of Mega Park and, on the first hand, smaller sites surrounding it, fit well into this model. In this connection, our important goal is to determine precisely the extension of the settlement and to place it more accurately in the system of Late Bronze Age settlements. It is necessary to make an intensive field research of the territory outside of the excavated area, mainly on the plateau hardly investigated during the excavation, because we do not have any information on its interior structure. A future task is to completely evaluate the Late Bronze Age find material. Now it is clear that the settlement was in use in the middle period of the Late Bronze Age (RBD-HA). Hopefully, the find material will provide an opportunity to separate different phases in this chronology. Márta L. Nagy Jósa András Museum 11 4401 Nyíregyháza Pf. 57 e-mail: lnagymarta@gmail.com 86
