Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 88. (Budapest 1996)
Medzihradszky, Zs. ; Járai-Komlódi, M.: Late-Holocene vegetation history and the activity of man in the Tapolca Basin
From Szigliget probably originating from a grave metal jewels were found from this period. It was presented by the layers between 230-250 cm (3346±62 BP, 1614 cal. BC). At the boundary of the Tapolca Basin there are many archaeological sites from the Late Bronze Age. The surroundings of the town Keszthely, there could have been one of the main centres of settlement net of the early tumulus culture. Its classical graves were excavated in Keszthely, Csabrendek, and about 2.5 km E of our borehole, at Szigliget. At the same place, on the foot of the Várhegy, an important bronze treasure was found (DARNAY 1899). The inhabitation of the territory is continuous until the end of the Late Bronze Age, the period of the urn-field culture. At the very end of the Sub-Boreal phase, at the beginning of the Sub-Atlantic in the 160-200 cm depth the pollen count decreases significantly in the samples. The carbonised plant remains increasing in the soil possibly preserved traces of a fire. In 170190 cm depth there were small amounts of several slightly humified (broken and fragmentary) sedge (Carex nigra LINNAEUS, 1753) and rush (Schoenoplectus lacustris LINNAEUS, 1753) remains (J. BAJZÁTH, pers. comm.). In his basic diagram ZÓLYOMI (1980) draws a fossil water layer at the border of the Sub-Boreal/Sub-Atlantic phase. Archaeologically the 8-5 TH centuries BC, the sites of the Early Iron Age cannot be found on those levels, where the finds of the Late Bronze Age and the Late Iron Age occur. Only further research will decide whether this results from an inadequacy of the research, a possible rise in water level or the possible differences in the settling peculiarities of the population of the Early Iron Age, and if this hiatus may be related to the palaeobotanically hardly valuable material from the depth of 160-200 cm. This layer is very important, because in the 180-190 cm depth the first Secale pollen grain was found. Might it be secondary? In the 100-160 cm layers, at the Sub-Atlantic phase, which contains the Early and Late Iron Age, the Roman and the Migration Period with attention we can well follow the strong decrease of the Fagus and Quercus, and the considerable increase of the non arbor pollen compared with the earlier. Although Juglans still appears in the depth 220-230 cm, continuously only since the 150 cm depth could have been calculated. The cereals are constantly there, among them the amount of pollen grains of rye is significant (Fig. 3). From the weed plants, appreciable as anthropogenic indicator the Plantago sp. from the 320 cm depth, the Plantago lanceolata LINNAEUS, 1753 from the 270 cm depth occur continuously. Their amount increases in the Sub-Atlantic phase. We have only few archaeobotanical data about the agriculture of the Celtic tribes in the Carpathian Basin. By the analogies of farther areas we know that the technology was fundamentally more advanced than in the Late Bronze Age (SZABÓ 1971). Based on the evidence of archaeological sites in the environs of Sopron several species of wheat, barley were cultivated, and among the cereals we can find the millet and the oat as well (JEREM et al. 1984, 1985). Antic sources refer to the Late Iron Age natural plant cover of Transdanubia. Probably it was covered by large woods yet, because immanes silvae, huge forests denomination can we read. In our pollen diagram a sudden increase of the cereal pollen is noticeable in this level.
