Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
32 WHATTHE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDINGS TELL US What the archaeological findings tell us The millennia of the Prehistoric Age (500,000 BC - around the birth of Christ) When visitors to Vác walking on the Danube bank look up at the castle walls rising above the promenade, or see the reconstructed walls of St Michael's Church in the Baroque Main Square, it may not cross their mind that this place has been inhabited since long before the Middle Ages. Due to its favourable geographical features the town and its vicinity provided good conditions for settling down thousands of years ago. Since written sources are not available from the Prehistoric Age, we do not know what the people or groups of people of the time called themselves and each other. It is only archaeological findings and observations of excavations that can offer some explanation regarding their material cultures, lifestyles, burial customs, arts and religious beliefs. With the help of these archaeological terms we can distinguish among the various cultures or groups. Each culture or group was named after a famous excavation site (e.g. the culture of Hatvan or Pécel), or a characteristic type of pottery (the culture of the linear pattern pottery) or some unique burial customs (the culture of tumulus burial or that of the urnfield site). Even though the Scythians of the Early Iron Age and, more so, the Celts of the Late Iron Age were already mentioned in some written sources from the end of the Prehistoric Age, we can still learn about them mainly from archaeological finds.The situation is similar in the case of the period, encompassing several historical ages until the foundation of the Hungarian State (the Roman Age, the Age of the Great Migration, the Age of the Conquest). Vác and its environs have been continuously populated since people first arrived here; the remains of the archaeological cultures of the region occur in this area too. A significant part of the legacy of the former periods was destroyed in the area of the expanding town during the Middle Ages, so a review of the findings preceding the Middle Ages must look beyond the present town centre. The majority of the archaeological finds described below are kept at the Tragor Ignác Museum; some of them can be seen at the local history exhibition of the museum. Hopefully there will be a chance to provide a wider range of display in the future. From the oldest period of the history of mankind, the Palaeolithic Age (500,000-10,000 BC) there are only a few traces in the fields outside Vác. The fire places, animal bones and flint tools found in Kis-Hermány, Gombás and Alsó-Csipkés Field are all obvious evidence of human existence. We know of the remains of a tent-like building and some firesides from the camp-site of a group of hunters in the Mesolithic Age. Very few of these have been found in Hungary; these particular ones were spotted in fields south-west of Vác. The people that temporarily settled here left us hundreds of small stone tools. In 6000-5000 BC, in the Early Neolithic Age some fundamental changes occurred in Europe, including Hungary as well. The essence of this change was that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle characteristic of the Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic Ages was gradually replaced by the systematic production of food. This process began about 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, in the area of the so-called fertile crescent in the big river-valleys (present-day Iraq, Iran and Turkey). The new lifestyle had a very important consequence: it resulted in permanent PREHISTORIC AGE 500,000 BC - around the birth of Christ Palaeolithic Mesolithic Neolithic Middle Neolithic Late Neolithic 500,000-10,000 BC 10,000-6000 BC 6000-5400 BC 5400-5000/4900 BC 5000/4900-4500/4400 BC Fire-places, flint tools Tent-like buildings, stone tools Permanent settling, stone tools Linear pottery Animal husbandry, farming, beam-framed houses
