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)

The environment of ancient man (Katalin T. Bíró, Zsófia Medzihradszky, Andrea Torma, István Vörös)

The environment of ancient man THE INORGANIC ENVIRONMENT The peoples settling in Hungary during bygone ages found a colourful mosaic of diverse environments suitable for settlement and for pursuing their different life-styles. The inner areas of the Carpathian Basin - fertile plainlands, hilly and mountainous regions rich in rivers and lakes - were protected by the arc of the Alps and the Carpathians. Though still changing slightly owing to the activity of various forces shaping the Earth's surface, the landscape had evolved by large. The formative and destructive activity of tectonic upheavals and subsiding basins, erosion, rivers, rainfall and wind shaped this part of the world. There were major shifts in river courses during the transition from the Ice Age to the Holocene (Fig. 1 ). On the testimony of the detailed map made before the river regulations, the unregulated rivers inundated large tracts of land, especially in the Great Hungarian Plain (Fig. 2). However, the conditions of the 18th century cannot be mechanically projected back in time. River courses, the natural vegetation and fauna were influenced also by the one-time climate, especially during the Palaeolithic. The periodisation of the Quaternary is essentially based on the changes in the climate. The Quaternary is divided into two main periods, the Pleistocene (the Ice Age) and the Holocene (the geological present). The Ice Age is divided into glacials (cold intervals) and interglacials (warm intervals) (cp. Fig. 8). The glacials were named after Alpine rivers and lakes (Giinz, Mindel, Riss, Würm). The climate was not equally cold during the span of a glacial period: cooler and warmer phases, called stadials and interstadials, alternated with each other. Currently, we are living in an interglacial period, which can be similarly subdivided into warmer and colder, wetter and drier phases. The impact of environmental factors was continuously balanced and eventually superseded by the human manipulation of the environment. About 80 per cent of Hungary's territory is covered by Quaternary formations. Most important among these is loess, which is 10-20 m thick on the average, but accumulated to 150 m in some places. The layers of intercalated reddish-brown clay in the loess are the remnants of palaeosols, formed during milder and wetter climatic periods. One of the most significant aspects of human evolution was the growing exploitation and transfonnation of the organic and inorganic environment. The principal evidence for this is the appearance of tools, primarily stone tools, reflecting the conscious physical transformation of rocks with suitable properties through the manufacture of increasingly complex artefacts. The first artificial material, pottery (fired clay) appeared in greater number as a typical household article in the material culture during the Neolithic. The many skills acquired earlier, such as hammering and polishing stones, making negative forms, the pyrotechnical and practical chemical knowledge necessary for pottery making and cooking provided the indispensable technical background to early metalworking and, later, to alloying and casting. Mastering the art of how to maintain and control high temperatures enabled the production of more ambitious materials, such as iron and glass. These skills formed the intellectual wealth of highly appreciated craftsmen, as testified by the surviving workshop remains, founders' hoards and unusual grave finds. VEGETATION The rapid climatic changes (rapid on the geological scale) had a major, lasting impact on the vegetation. The advance of the ice-sheet caused the southward retreat of the vegetation; when the climate improved, plants again "migrated" northward. The ice-free regions during the glaciations were covered with treeless vegetation made up of cold and aridity tolerant species. At the beginning of interglacials, warmth-loving