KOVÁCS TIBOR: TUMULUS CULTURE CEMETERIES OF TISZAFÜRED / Régészeti Füzetek II/17. (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Budapest, 1975)
III.Some considerations on the cemeteries
We can take this into account in the case of continuity of the Tiszafüred cemeteries. Especially , if we consider, that here, the ethnic groups of the Tumulus Culture, settled in the Tisza area came into contact with entirely different geographic conditions compared to their original location. The fact, that the rulers assimilate to the conditions of the occupied people and environment can be seen at many aborigines tribes living at a similar stage of development. This can influence the rate of taking over the customs and traditions as well. As an example we can mention that the original Middle European territory of the Tumulus Culture people used as an important element of their burial custom, tumulus covered, stone constructed graves, whereas in the Tiszafüred cemeteries of the stone-poor - Hungarian Plains not a single stone covered grave was ever found. This is one the most definite proofs, that the people in their new environment have changed their customs basically due to these objective reasons 2 9. This all means, that the topographical relations of the Tiszafüred cemeteries, the continuity of the buriel sites, present new possibilities for later research. Although we shall further return to some of the questions raised here, the detailed evaluation can only be accomplished and finalized in the paper dealing with the whole of the Middle Bronze Age cemeteries 3 0. Since 271 graves, but six, presented here, came to light at Majoroshalom, our remarks and summarizing analysis refers only to the 365 graves at this location. What is then the true source-material value of the cemetery section at Majoroshalom? The searched, more than 15 000 m 2 area does not cover the whole of the extensive Late Bronze Age cemetery. The burial site includes two, raised 2—3 m and 5—6 m high, sandy hills respectively. The most graves were excavated in their centers, whereas in the flatter areas around them there were considerably less graves in patches and groups only. The edge of the cemeteries were reached at the southern and south eastern areas respectively only. The surface here is deep lying and saline, must have been often flooded in earlier times too. At the same time we did not reach the western, northwestern boundary of the cemetery. But since we came very close to the deep lying areas surrounding the sandy hills we got a good idea about the extent of the site. Considering this, we could assume that we searched two thirds of the original site of the Late Bronze Age cemetery. But this fact does not necessarily mean that the 365 graves represent the same proportion of the total burials; most probably much less, at best the half of the original graves, as we indicated, were destroyed by the large number of Avar graves. Thirty percent of the excavated graves are confused, fifty six percent disturbed, and only fourteen percent is completely undisturbed. These figures, even if they are not favourable, represent the essentials. Nevertheless we must note, that we used the rule of considering a grave undistrubed only if it did not suffer any later damage, more consequently than the general practice of other publications of prehistoric cemeteries 3 1 . The cemetery is biritual. Skeleton graves amount to 132 (36%), cremation graves to 111 (3Cb4%). In 122 cases rites could not have been determined. Some data though makes us believe that most of these were cremation graves: — mainly those, where more, or more kinds of pottery, or pottery sherds were found, since we can state generally, that even in the undisturbed skeleton graves one cup was generally found only, whereas in the cremation graves there were usually 3—5 vessel on the average; — we can reach the same conclusion based on grave depth as well, skeleton graves were dug lower than those of the cremation graves, thus the latter ones were more vulnerable to all later soil works 3 2; — even the highly confused skeleton graves are much easier to identify than the cremation graves, bones being more identifiable than ashes. Finally we can thus assume, that the two rites were used in equal proportion in the excavated cemetery section. There were four pythos burials among the skeleton graves. These were all such children's graves where the corpse was placed in a large jar-shaped-vessel, which then was laid on its side in the grave. Most of the cremation graves were urn graves (99), only 11 graves were found with scattered ashes, whereas the rite of one grave is unknown. The division of rites established by the graves of Tiszafüred cemetery is essentially different from the division of the Carpathian Tumulus Culture cemeteries. Elsewhere we discussed the burial rites of similar age in Hungary 3 2 . thus here we only want to refer to the data of the larger cemeteries with considerable number of graves. One hundred and fifty one cremation, and twelve skeleton graves were excavated in the southwestern Slovakian Salka I cemetery 3 3. One hundred cremation and four skeleton graves are known from Egyek, whereas at Rákóczifalva the sixty seven graves show a 50 to 17 ratio 3 4. But most of the graves of the forty of Mezőcsát, namely thirty seven are skeleton graves. 3 5 The people of the northern Hungarian Piliny culture buried their dead exclusively after cremation. 3 6 This culture is partially contemporary with the Tumulus Culture. In spite of the fact that these data show a considerable variety, they do not lend themselves for drawing any long range conclusions. Without exception they are all only parts of cemeteries, thus their formation was due to accidental factors. But even if we did not consider this, we could only get to valuable figures if we knew the relative chronology of each discussed cemetery part. This is probably the most important condition to examine the division by rites of the more or less contemporary burials. 3 7 41
