Kőszegi Frigyes: A Dunántúl Története A Későbronzkorban (BTM műhely 1. kötet Budapest, 1988)

Időrendi és történeti áttekintés (The history of Transdanubia during the late bronze age.) Bilingual-bilingvis.

bound peasant type conditions had been ensured, nor did the farther established settlements differ much. Although the close to a one metre thick cultural layer has not come to light in Transdanubia, these villages still remind us of the settlements of the Gáva Culture. The settlement excavated in the area of Békásmegyer-Vízművek proves a population encompassing several centuries, although the continuity engulfing the full Urnfield period cannot be proven by the only help of the different pit materials. The cemetery of this population lies on the hillside along the Danube at Csillaghegy and according to the find material it was in use during the full period of the Vál Culture. Some 330 graves of the Vöröshadsereg Road represent a period from Vál I to the end of Vál II and the same can be said about the other cemeteries of the culture. In fact, even in only indirectly, the cemeteries, in use for a long time, indicate the above described settled way of life. It is likely that within their economy agriculture was of major importance as proven by a com storage excavated in Zugló.

529 On the one hand the peasant type agricultural and animal husbandry economy, on the other hand the mass producing bronze industry and trade, enclosing a wide area, were the economic bases of the late UK. Concerning the social structure of the people of the culture we must think of a different formation from that of the earlier phases of the UK. The shepherding late Tumulus patriarchal tribes, based on clantribe-cells must have undergone a revolutionary change during the last two centuries of the second millenium B.C. The more or less unified pottery and bronzes of the early Urnfield period indicate the development of an ever increasing central power system. The warrior graves of the ruling class under the tumuli indicate a strongly organized political and military unit, which was mentioned earlier as a military democracy. This social formation towards the end of the period rather marks a somewhat despotic rule, centered in the hand of the leaders, than a democracy. The Kurd type hoards getting underground no longer represents the mutual wealth of a whole tribe but the individual property of one of the privileged which may at once have represented the raw material stock of a local bronze workshop or its products. The same strong social differentiation is reflected in the graves, rich with bronze furnishings, and the relatively poorer ones as well, and last but not least the special settlement phenomena, characteristic for the period.

530 The slow transformation of the clannish society, even if not so showily, continued to go on during the younger Urnfield period as well. Bronze furnishings in the earliest graves of the Vál Culture, but even in the Sághegy cemetery are still frequent, later though they disappear almost completely. In the graves of Vál II, apart from some exceptions, we find no difference among the furnishings of the different graves. Only the Vöröshadsereg Road site in Budapest produced such graves, where the furnishings indicated the earlier special social status of the people in the communityburied there. Especially graves containing clay materials with astral symbols, the so called magic tools, foot shaped vessels, bronze inlaid urns are of significance. All these finds, for their special role played in the contemporary cultic life, ensure a special position for this cemetery within the Vál Culture.

531 There are only a few bronze furnishings in the graves of the younger UK in Transdanubia and concerning the whole of the Middle Danubian Urnfield Culture, and this seems quite unusual. The contemporary of lower Austria, south Moravia, Slovenia (Wien-Leopoldsberg,Klentnice, Oblekovice,Brno-Obrany,Ruse,etc.) are much richer in bronze furnishings than the Transdanubians and this phenomenon may indicate that the Urnfield Culture of this period did no longer build its economic and power centers in Transdanubia any more. These must be sought in such places like Stillfried or Brno—Obrany. We do not know yet whether this economic power coupled with a political power in the case of Velemszentvid and Sághegy. Fortified settlements held their districts under control in the inner regions of Transdanubia. Although the find material of these settlements reveales local specialities within the younger Urnfield Culture as well (Lengyeltóti, Bakonyszentkirály, etc.), their alliance to the Middle Danubian Urnfield Culture cannot be doubted. The specific Urnfield Culture of southern Transdanubia have already developed during the early UK only to get its final features with the contribution of the Vál Culture. Its sites are denser in the Mecsek area and its two main centers are Pécs-Jakab hegy and Makárhegy. It is very likely that the Pécsvárad-Aranyhegy population moved from its badly défendable settlement to this area after the hiding of the Kurd type hoards. The most characteristic own type of pottery of this culture is the so called "Kantharos" type vessel with two curved handles. This has some Balkanic connections, its background, nevertheless should be sought in the southern area of the Carpathian Basin and its roots reach back into the Middle Bronze Age. The territorial facies of the southern Transdanubian Urnfield Culture is the Dálya-Kiskőszeg group, developing in the younger phase of the culture, relating to the Slovenian Dobova-Ruse type cemetery circle.

532 The local late Tumulus - early UK background must have played a significant role in the development. It must be remembered that there was a very strong bronze metallurgy in the area between the Drave and the Save which was related to the Kurd bronze metallurgy. Their further development, however, was highly influenced by the emerging Vál elements of the areas of the Danube and its tributaries. The fact of the Vál expansion could hardly be doubted considering the Vál type find material showing at north Yugoslavian Late Bronze Age settlemenets.

533 The different late Urnfield groups of Transdanubia separate from each other by their settlement structure. The inhabitants of northwestern Transdanubia went on with their occupations engulfing the different branches of bronze metallurgy in the protected highland area, whereas the people of the Vál Culture basically clung to agriculture and