Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)

HALL 3-4 - The Bronze Age (2800-800 B.C.) (Ildikó Szathmári)

investigated sites. It is typical of the so-called stratified tell settlements, which flourished during the first half of the 2nd millennium in the eastern half of the Carpathian Basin. Around 2000 B.C., the Carpathian Basin was settled by communities with a subsistence whose origins lay in Anatolia and South-East Europe. The Great Hungarian Plain offered an environment well suited to agrarian lifeways based on intensive crop cultivation. In this region, some of the permanent settlements eventually grew into the economic and cultural centre of a smaller area. The Hungarian tell settlements evolved in the same way as in Anatolia and South-East Europe: new buildings were erected over the remains of earlier ones, which had often been destroyed by fire, after the debris was levelled. The street system, houses and economic buildings remained unchanged for many generations. The debris layers accumulated into 5-6 meters high mounds, many of which still dot the landscape. The Bronze Age settlement of JászdózsaKápolnahalom lies at the meeting point of two major regions, the plainland and the mountainous area to its north. The mound rising above the surrounding land was investigated in the course of several excavation seasons. The layout of the Bronze Age settlement, the arrangement of the houses and their construction technique is illustrated by a model of the settlement and a section of the tell. The Bronze Age village covered an area of roughly 500 m by 800 m on the banks of the Nyavalyka Stream, a tributary of the Tama River. The stream has dried out by now, but in prehistory it provided ample fresh water for the occupants. In the centre of the settlement stood the almost 6 m high mound, the oval "citadel", surrounded by an outer settlement. The entire settlement was protected by ramparts and ditches, whose remains can still be seen on aerial photos. The outer rampart and ditch has not been investigated, only the inner one running directly around the mound. The 13.5 m wide and over 4 m deep ditch lay about 6 metres from the outermost houses. The digging of these massive protective enclosures with antler tools called for many days of intensive labour. The pebbles found on the floor of the ditch suggest that the settlement's occupants had used the bed of a living watercourse for creating the ditch. The postholes of the protective fence (the palisade) were uncovered on the edge facing the village. The 540 cm thick layer sequence was made up of 16 occupation levels. The first occupants (Hatvan culture) founded the settlement sometime around 1800 B.C. The settlement was the largest and the most densely occupied during this phase (levels XVI-XI). The protective enclosure of ditches and ramparts was constructed at this time. The occupants built large, 4-5 m wide multi-roomed houses, whose length often exceeded 12 m. Narrow lanes, no more than 80-100 cm wide, ran between the houses. The peaceful life of this early settlement came to an end with the arrival of a new population (Füzesabony culture). The buildings of the last occupation level were destroyed by a huge conflagration, leaving a thick debris layer (level XI). A gold hoard hidden in a clay pot found under a house floor dates from this phase. Even though the layout of the settlement changed considerably, the archaeological finds suggest that the original occupants did not flee the settlement. It is also possible that the newly-arrived group did not settle here, even though their culture had a visible impact on the culture of the original population. Be as it may, the houses from the next period were smaller and their overall arrangement changed too (levels X-VI). Vessels were decorated with designs differing from the ones of the previous period. This period too was brought to an end by a conflagration destroying the entire settlement. The exact nature of cultural influences and possible population movements behind the changes which can be observed throughout the Carpathian Basin in the mid-2nd millennium B.C. is still unclear. The archaeological