Kovács Tibor - Stanczik Ilona (szerk.): Bronze Age tell settlements of the Great Hungarian Plain I. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 1; Budapest, 1988)

Tibor KOVÁCS: Review of the Bronze Age settlement research during the past one and a half centuries in Hungary

48 DOMBAI 1958. 49 PATEK 1968, 74. 50 PATEK 1961. 51 PÁRDUCZ 1970a. 52 PÁRDUCZ 1970b. 53 SZATHMÁRI 1983.-VÁGÓ 1959; MAKKAY 1969. 54 BANNER 1955a; BANNER-BÓNA 1974. See also VARGHA 1955.-This marked the beginning of a series of excavations conducted by the Archaeological Chair of the Eötvös Loránd University at Baracs (1962), Jászdózsa (1966), Tószeg (1973-74) and Tiszaalpár (1974-75), which offered an opportunity for a younger generation of prehistorians to master the technique and methods of modern settlement archaeology. 55 For a detailed survey, see KOVÁCS 1982. 56 TROGMAYER 1970.-HEGEDŰS 1974-1977.BONA-NOVÁKI 1982.-CSÁNYISTANCZIK 1982.-STANCZIK 1978.-The finds from Gáborján, Esztár and Bakonszeg are published in this volume. 57 BÁNDI 1981.-SCHREIBER 1972.-BÁNDI 1963.-KALICZ 1968.-STANCZIK 1982.-KEMENCZEI 1967b.-KOVÁCS 1975, 5-8.-STANCZIK 1979-80.-BÓNA 1979-80.-ECSEDY 1983.-MÁTHÉ 1984.-BÁNDI-FEKETE 1973-74. 58 To avoid any misunderstandings, the following must be noted. When we speak of completeness, a distinction must be drawn between excavations extending to every square metre of a given site, and between excavations that do not uncover one hundred percent of the site, but which nonetheless provide an optimal amount of information for the better understanding of the given site-partly with the aid of reconstructions. While there is rarely possibility for the former in the case of tell settlements, the latter augments the comparable and évaluable data bases by the investigation of similar or contemporary sites. Hungarian research opted for the latter by the excavation of tell and tell-like settlements. 59 It would be an oversimplification to regard this as the sole reason. Set in a wider perspective, the traditional archaeological attitude in Central Europe-that differs from the Anglo-American one-also played a role in this state of affairs. In other words: the divergence in the importance attached to chronological issues. All the same, palaeobotanical and palaeozoological analyses-that are cardinal to prehistoric studies-have mostly only been carried out in Hungary. 60 NOVÁKI 1952; 1953; CSALOG 1952b. Suffice it here to quote but a few examples: KALICZ 1957; KOVALOVSZKI 1957; MAKKAY 1957; VADÁSZ 1969; TORMA 1969, and the volumes of the Archaeological Site Survey of Hungary that have been published beginning with 1966. 62 MOZSOLICS 1967; 1973; 1985; KALICZ 1968; PATEK 1968; BONA 1975; KEMENCZEI 1984. 63 BÄNDI 1962; MOZSOLICS 1969. 64 BONA-NOVÁKI 1982. 65 I have deliberately avoided the 'qualitative grouping' of the excavations conducted in the last three decades in this brief review. Even though the scope and chronological parameters of these excavations would have allowed some sort of classification - in spite of the fact that in many cases I only had access to the already quoted, often laconic data and to the preliminary reports. The personal autopsy gained in the course of brief personal visits cannot, obviously, offer a sound basis for evaluation. It is for this reason that the duality of Bronze Age settlement studies in Hungary has been emphatically stressed: on the one hand, there is a mass of new evidence which, on the other, cannot be used. It cannot be used because in its present, unpublished state we are not even aware of what we could be working with. Even though a high standard of fieldwork — also in comparison with foreign work-has been achieved in Hungary, there is an increasing lag in the publication of their results which has by now become an obstacle to the formulation of more complex research strategies. True enough, this is in part related to the general publicational possibilities of scientific research in Hungary. Since, however, there are other reasons for the dual nature of our activities in this respect, the critical element has perhaps dominated my discussion of the unfulfilled potentials of settlement archaeology in Hungary. It is an entirely different matter that similar symptoms can often be discerned elsewhere in Central Europe and also beyond.