Ilon Gábor: Szombathely őskori településtörténetének vázlata (Szombathely, 2004)
Ilon Gábor SUMMARY Historical frame and the changes in environment - in a nutshell Characterized by the features of land cultivation, animal husbandry and pottery production (briefly: production activities), the so-called Neolithic Revolution booming up from the area of the Fertile Crescent Moon reached the Carpathian Basin around the turn of the 7th and 6th millenia B.C. As a result, the Central Danube Basin, as a periphery located far from the center of Aegean-Anatolian cyclo-culture, became the principal driving force of the Central and Western European "Neolithization" process; de facto, it became an individual development sub-center, a secondary neolithization center - if one prefers this term. A few centuries later, in the Middle Neolithic Age, the phenomenon of population migration and further innovations also became present in our county. Providing place for the city of Szombathely and its immediate vicinity, the western region of the Carpathian-basin constituted only a peripherical part even later in the Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages, despite the two main international routes passing through this territory. These were the South-Eastern -North-Western Routes (through which radiolarite stone cargos as raw material were transported to the Western European line-decorating groups, and further cultural influence may have occurred in return during the Copper Age) as well as the North-Southern Borostyánkő ("Amber") Route. On the contrary, from a different point of view this region had played a significant role in the prehistory of Continental Europe, incorrectly regarded as „barbarian", precisely due to the mediation of impacts coming from the South-East and later from the East, to which it also contributed in a particular manner. Namely, the center of "world history" drifted gradually from the aforementioned central venue into a north-western destination, first to the Aegean zone (Hellas, Roman Empire) and followingly from the eastern coastline of the Atlantic Ocean (Spain, the Netherlands, England) to its western hemisphere (the United States of America). The city of Szombathely and also the surrounding and connected settlements constituting an integral part of it are geographically located in the Western Hungarian peripherical region on a broader scale, at the same time in the middle region of the Lower Alps, more closely in the cozy Gyöngyös plain area on a narrower scale. This plain land (a territory of 400 km 2 s) is situated south of the Kőszeg Mountains in the terrace of the Gyöngyös Creek, a water stream evolving in the place of an early sag sea of the New Pleistocene. Having a wide floodplain along an undulated plain area covered by river ballast in all directions, the valley is all over encrusted with brown clay, clayed loess and loess layers from the glacial epoch. The area slightly leans to the South-East, which of course determines the flow direction of the Gyöngyös Creek. The side creeks of the 24-kilometer-long Gyöngyös are named Baláta, Borzó, Perec, and Surányi Creeks as well as Sard and Sormás Brooks, Hosszúvíz and Rátka Creeks. Another important water stream of this plain land is the (Sorok)-Perint Creek. The average height of 207 meters above sea level and the surface morphology, i.e. the random aggregation offlowless or maleficent flow indentures as well as the dead beds of the Gyöngyös Creek and the upthrusts in between said dead beds, meant an attractive and ideal environment for the prehistoric man. The clay and clayed loess covering the river ballast layer provided excellent raw material for both the potters and the brick factories later on. The dominating soil type of this area is the forest soil. The vegetation belongs to the Vas (Castriferreicum) flora. The forests consist of alder groves, oak-ash-elm grove forests, hornbeam-oak trees and pine-oak groves. The current mildly cold and moderately dry climate is quite beneficial for agricultural activities. Also, the Alps determine the dominant northern and southern directions of the winds. The city itself stretches on a row of mounds from the North-West to the SouthEast plain area in its immediate vicinity. Its highest point is 216 meters above sea level. 94
