Pop, Dan: The Middle Bronze Age Settlement of Petea-Csengersima (Satu Mare, 2009)

II. Cultural assigning of the Middle Bronze Age finds

floor fragments drawn into the Roman Age well. The preserved dimensions of the burnt clay platform in this case were: 170 x 90 cm, 20 cm thick. Although we had little information about house 935, located between the post holes 936-939, and preserved as a daub agglomeration with unclear shape, we could assume that it belongs to the surface houses type the more so as there were four post holes around the feature.

Another surface house is feature 578, with a significant size (300 X 740 cm), 10 cm thick, but without clay floor.

Without being able to draw a certain conclusion, all the features in this category are, with one exception, quasi-rectangular in shape.

From the early phase of the Suciu de Sus culture several sites are known where surface houses were uncovered. Unfortunately they are often only mentioned, sometimes they are described and only in a few cases they are illustrated4. Thus, several surface houses5 are mentioned at Lăpuşel “Ciurgăuat Medieşu Aurit “Şuculeu”, three or four houses are mentioned, but information is provided only for one of them (L4), namely that it was rectangular in shape and was 1.50 x 0.90 m in size6. In the Transcarpathian Ukraine, at Diakovo “Kişerda”, four surface houses with ovens inside them were found. One of the house spread over an area of 28 square meters, it had rectangular shape, and an oven in the centre. The second house was destroyed, but it covered an area of approximately 30-32 square meters. Also at Diakovo, in the point called “Mondicitag”, three such houses were uncovered. One of them was rectangular (5.8 x 5 m); in the south-eastern comer there was an oven, and in the opposite comer - a hearth7. The second house had similar shape, dimensions of 7.40 x 5-3.60 m and covered an area of 29-30 square meters; an oven and a pit were found inside8. The third house had 24 square meters, an oven in its centre, and a pit in the eastern part. Also, at Solotvino, seven such houses of different sizes and quadrilateral in shape, were excavated. Six of them had clay floors with a thickness of 8-10 cm, one had a hearth inside, while in houses nos. 18 and 20 the post holes were identified. They were rather small houses as, for example, house no. 17 had 2.85 x 2 m9. Similar houses are mentioned in the settlement from Kvasove II10 *.

II.1.2. Pithouses

1 assigned to this category of constructions the features that were more or less deepened into the sterile soil and with larger sizes than the pits. The features are rectangular and oval in shape and none had clay floors. So, we can conclude that unlike the pithouses, only the surface constmctions had clay floors".

Of the seven rectangular pithouses, some are large-sized12, others are smaller13, probably as a result of the purpose they were built for. We could assume that the small ones were used as household annexes. The same interpretation applies to the seven oval-shaped pithouses14.

A special case among the features with circular shape, but with significant sizes for a pit, is represented by feature 1109. A group of several ceramic sherds were found at about 1-1.5 m north-east of the feature, at a depth of 25 cm. Archaeologists who carried-out the research assumed that they originated from pit 1109 because successive scrapping under the group of sherds did not reveal any feature they could have originated from. The fragments reached this

4 See to this Pop D. 2008.

5 Kacsó 1995, 84; Kacsó 2004b, 72.

6 Bader 1978, 66; Iercoşan 1993, 86 no.24.

7 Balaguri 1974, 28-32, fig.2-4.

8 Balaguri 1974,32-34, fig.2.

9 KobaF 1997, 120, fig.8; Vasiliev 2002, 30-32, pi.8-9.

IU KobaF 2007,585.

" Vasiliev 2002, 31.

12 Features: 1496 with dimensions of 220 X 330 cm and of 30 cm deep; 544 D with dimensions of 340 X 370 cm and of 60 cm deep; 1150 with dimensions of 520 X 880 cm and 30 cm deep; 1155 with dimensions of 490 X 390 cm and with a depth varying from 40 to 60 cm.

13 Features: 597 with dimensions of 200 X 165 cm; depth: 40 cm , 780 B 170 X 295 cm, depth: 35 cm; 780 C had dimensions of 76 x 200 cm and 35 cm in depth.

l4It's about features: 772 A, sizes: 330 X 210 cm, depth: 10-40 cm; 780, sizes: 220 X 500 cm, depth: 35 cm; 830, sizes: 274 X 150 cm, depth: 30 cm; 1104, sizes: 190 X 240 (?) cm, depth: 38 cm; 1 105, sizes: 316 cm, depth: 36 cm; 1284 B, sizes: 180 X 265 cm, depth: 40 and 60 cm; 1302, dimensions: 280 x 300 cm, 20 cm in depth.

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