KOVÁCS TIBOR: TUMULUS CULTURE CEMETERIES OF TISZAFÜRED / Régészeti Füzetek II/17. (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Budapest, 1975)
III.Some considerations on the cemeteries
In the case of the Late Bronze Age cemetery of Tiszafüred representing the burial rites of the natives of the Middle Bronze Age Füzesabony culture it must jiave been a decisive factor that the number of skeleton burials are realtively high. The Füzesabony culture buried their dead according to strict orientation (men: S-N, women: N—S) in a contracted position. Only from the later period of the culture, from the Bodrogszerdahely phase, do we know scattered ash burials in very low numbers. 3 8 From this time on the orientation becomes less strict and shows a variety of 10—20° from the main direction. At the same time it is important to emphasize, that the people living at this territory for more than two hundred years did not know the custom of placing the ashes in an urn, e. g. the so called pythos burial. 3 9 In spite of the fact, that some tribes of the Tumulus Culture, settled as conquerors at the Upper-Tisza region followed the skeleton burial rite, the traditional customs of the assimilated natives played an important part in the development of the ratio of the bi-ritual burials. The presently conducted physical anthropological examinations will be able to prove this in the case of our cemetery. But on many occasions the orientation and the finds in the graves prove this also. The graves of the Tumulus Culture of Carpathian region are mostly E—W, and W-E respectively. 40 Orientation could be determined for 86 skeleton graves, for 70 of these precise orientation could be expressed in degrees. If we consider 20° of deviation from the main direction the borderline, then 22 of the 70 graves could be considered E-W, or W-E oriented, respectively. Two of these are precisely E—W, 90° (Graves 210, 272) and another two W-E, 270° (Graves 120, 149). About 70% of the 22 graves bore such objects which were highly spread over the pottery and metalware territory of the Tumulus Culture, like the seal-headed pin (Grave 50) and arrowhead (Grave 99), ribbed plate rings (Graves 103, 149, 256), tweezers (Grave 335), bent headed pins (Grave 348), undivided heart-shaped pendent (Grave 138), dishes with peaked rim (Graves 106, 280). It is important to notice that the orientation of those graves where the metal finds are of the Koszider type or the typical pottery of the inhabitants is different of the above, like grave 161: NE-SW,48°; grave 188: SW-NE; grave 258: NE-SW, 48°; grave 278: SE-NW, 127°. In spite of the fact that these data verify each other, their source material value is doubtful without detailed physical anthropological investigation because of the low occurrance rate, if for no other reasons. But those four graves which are oriented S—N or N—S of the seventy discussed skeleton graves indicate this already (Graves 24, 240, 304, 313). According to the orientation the people buried in these graves must have belonged to the native inhabitants. At the same time the finds, the apparel belong to the peculiar product of the Tumulus people. This fact does not neccesarily mean an unsurpassable controversy. One can suppose the dependency between the natives and the conquerors determined to what extent the local tribes could keep their customs, that is, how long it took for them to assimilate, sometimes without any trace, to the customs of the newcomers. In any case the data of the Tiszafüred cemetery indicate that orientation alone cannot be considered as a decisive factor for the ethnic groups. This applies to the way of burial also, since the use of urns spread by the Tumulus Culture at the discussed area after many centuries. One could then conclude that the 99 urn graves belong to the people of the Tumulus Culture who settled here. This is probably valid for the period of occupation, ánd can even be proven by archaeological data. Mainly in the case of those graves where the pottery finds represent those views which have been generally used in the area of the Tumulus Culture (dishes of graves 1, 19, 25, 235, 265, 306). Urns lend themselves very well for this investigation because their use spread only because they were accessory to the new burial rite. But like the majority of urns and other vessels, like dishes, jars, mugs, pitchers and cups bear an inevitable mutual influence due to the joint lives of the native inhabitants and conquerors and their intermarriages. This can be mainly noticed in the development and combinations of the decorative elements (dishes of graves 13, 22, 31, 56, 222, 234(. Whether this is due to a simple mixture of style, or starting with the second generation a change due to the new blood-relations can only be answered by the physical anthropological investigations. At least in the case of those 41 urn graves where calcinated bones were found this is true. Concerning the system of burials before the chronological evaluation we would like to point out that the « cemetery map shows a group arrangement. This can be well seen in the western part of the cemetery, which was not inhabited by the cemetery of the Migration period. There are five separate grave groups in this area, about 10—22 meters apart. The supposed basic system can be best seen at the western rim of the burials. It seems that graves 316-318, 319—321, 332, 334—336 are located roughly on the edge of an oval area. (A). East of this two grave groups can be separated on the highest point of the cemetery, which are composed of graves 315, 322-331, 336-338 (B) and graves 283-287, 289, 291-296, 301, 336-338, 309-310, 334 (C). The same arrangement is reflected by graves 330, 302, 307-308, 313-314, 339-348, 353 (D) and graves 349-355 (E). The grouping of graves strictly by their position is highly hypothetical. Considering the worn down condition of this sandy area only the following data can be held trustworthy: — Both between groups A and B-C and D and B-C there is a 15-20 meters wide empty lane, and this indicates separate family burial places within the cemetery. — There are no burials at the central section of the area bordered by the graves of group A, and except for two graves, this applies to the arrangement of group D. 4 2 — The line of graves cease occasionally on the border of A-B and D-E groups. The empty spaces mist have been reserved for the still living members of the families. There are indications that the burial places were 42
