Astaloş, Ciprian (szerk.): Satu Mare. Studii şi comunicări. Seria arheologie 28/1. (2012)
Gergely Bóka: Changes int he Settlement History of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Körös Region Hydrology, Reliefs and Settlements
indicate again a proximity to rivers. All these can be correlated with the climatic and paleohydrological changes, and the fluctuations of the water surface level and the intensity of floodings, which might have, by all means, happened in the region. Similar consequences were drawn from the investigation of settlement ecology conducted at the terraced valley of the Danube between Dunaalmás and Esztergom. As a characteristic of the Urnfield Culture in this area, settlements emerge on both ashore and the islands. As opposed to this, settlements of the consecutive period, the Early Iron Age (800/700-500/400 BC, according to the publications), occupied lands with higher altitude that were situated farther from the Danube. After the so called Urnfield climate optimum, the elevated level of floodings concluded that human habitations „crept upwards” to higher altitudes owing to the 2-300-year-long cool and rainy oscillation of the Early Iron Age; but the intensive emergence of settlements alongshore in the second half of the Late Iron Age already refer to a lower level of rivers29. According to the changes in the values of Bog Surface Wetness (BSW hereinafter) in the UK and results of sedimentation analyses conducted on the floodplains, low fluvial activity with warm and dry climate phase can be reconstructed between 1200-850 BC; between 850-550 BC, a more intense fluvial activity with cold and wet climate can be observed, and a short decrease of the BSW values besides higher water levels and stagnating fluvial activity between 550 and 400 BC30; whereas cold and wet climate phase and augmenting fluvial activity can be reconstructed between 400 and 100 BC31. 5. Summary On the basis of the analyses conducted on reliefs Upper Pleistocene, Early Holocene and New Holocene in origin, which are characterized by different altitudes, the introduced paleo-hydrological reconstructions (Fig. 6), as well as those of the identified locations of the settlements of the cultures discussed above, Gáva Culture occupied all three main reliefs in equal distribution, in areas close to watercourses. In contrast, people of the Vekerzug Culture preferred settling down in higher lands, and moved farther from running waters. La-Téne culture appeared on lower reliefs more frequently than Vekerzug Culture, and pulled closer to rivers coincidentally. The spatial distribution of settlements may reflect to onetime climatic circumstances, the changes of fluvial activity, the oscillation of water levels, as well as to the intensity and fluctuation of floodings, too. The localization of Gáva Culture settlements refers to a warmer, drier climate and more predictable fluvial activity, which corresponds to the parameters of the so-called Urnfield climate optimum. The settlement structure of the Scythian Vekerzug Culture suggests colder and wetter weather conditions (as discussed above), and the immoderate activity of running waters in its territory during the Early/Middle Iron Age. Under the La-Téne period a kind of consolidation process can be observed. The frequency of settlements in lower areas and riparian plots grew again, referring to a warming process from the Late Iron age onwards, and a more stable, predictable fluvial activity. Changes in the Settlement History of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Körös Region Gergely Bóka Hungarian National Museum - National Cultural Heritage Protection Centre Hungary, Daróci u. 3. Budapest 1113 gergely.boka@mnm-nok.gov.hu 29 Horváth 2000; 2002. 30 Brown 2008. 31 14 independent flooding episodes are recognized in Great Britain in the Holocene, between 10420 and 400 cal BC. One of these is dated to the period between 2750 and 2350 cal BP (Macklin/ Lewin 2003). 27
