Vadas Ferenc (szerk.): A Szekszárdi Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum Évkönyve 13. (Szekszárd, 1986)

Ferenc Horváth: Aspects of Late Neolithic changes in the Tisza-Maros Region

culture are due to peoples of the Balkans (probably the Sopot II culture) who contributed to formation of the Lengyel culture in Transdanubia, and elements of them appeared in the SouthernAlföld, too. We intend to discuss this question in the case of the detailed publication of the Gorzsa D phase. We regard the Gorzsa group as a local variant of the Tisza culture extending to a few sites in which the Balkan elements survive more strongly than in the other Tisza culture settlements, in the same way as in the Lengyel culture. This explains the differences in the pottery but because of the close links and common features with the Tisza culture in economy and settlement system they cannot be separated from the entirety ofthat in time or space. The elaboration of the inner development of the culture and of the whole complex of the artefacts is not possible without the comparative materials of new excavations carried out by up-to-date methods and performed with detailed stratigraphical distinctions on the large central tell-settlements. From most of the old excavations we have only defective stratigraphical data and the new excavations are more or less unpublished or are in process (Vésztő-Mágor, Herpály, Tiszapolgár-Csőszhalom, Szeghalom-Kovácshalom, Öcsöd, Gorzsa). Thus it is not the time to form a new synthesis based on the comparioson of identical settlement phases of different tells. That is why it is hard to establish when the classical period appears on a given tell (Fig. 2.) - if the term „calssical Tisza" should at present be applied as a category defining a time span and specific artefact-complex at all. In my opinion the undefined application of this term in itself is the root of many misunderstandings to date. I think, when speaking about chronology, it would be better to name the period following the early one, (when there are no Szakáihát, Vinca-Tordos or any early Tisza elements: wide, black strips of paint, spouted vessels [PI. 1.

6.], urns with faces, resinous black covering, incised dots and lines, cordlike ribs, etc.), the second or late Tisza period. The term „classical" is not adequate to make a chronological difference of such a kind between the early and the following Tisza period, because it represents the flourishing, the prosperity that means the enriched stage of development of the economic-social structure of the culture. Certain early Tisza tells definitely reached this stage. In the central, western, and South-Eastern part of the tell the cemetery of the Gorzsa B-phase covers the accretion of the settlement of phase C (together with the earlier excavated graves this makes 40 graves in several burial groups). In the course of excavation on several different sectors of the tell we have not found a distinct phase of settlement belonging to this. Gy. GAZDAPUSZTAI connected with this sherds of the trial-trench no. 1/1956 situated further down from the slope of the tell where the Tisza-patterned sherds were absent. However our reexcavation has not supported this, but the great extent, and the central situation of the cemetery leads to the assumption that the settlement belonging to it should be placed far away from the earlier area of the houses, at least in a different place from the houses of phase D and C. This is the most revealing change on the tell in comparison to the continuity of the earlier phases. This change marks the end of the life of phase C (PI. Ill) at the same time. The pottery coming from graves (PI. IV. 1-9) and from phase A is closely analoguous with the pottery of the graves excavated on Lebő A (KOTZIAN 1972,86-89, Pl. LXV., KOREK

1984). The research mentions solely the sites of Gorzsa and Lebő B when discussing the question of the Illrd period of Tisza culture, stating that they coexist with it (KOREK 1984, 148, KOTZIAN 1966, 277, Idem 1972,214). The only problem is that we have no other so92