Folia archeologica 25.

Kovács Tibor: Bronzkori urnatemető Törtelen

A BRONZE AGE URN CEMETERY AT TÖRTÉL I. In spite of its importance as an intermediator between the Middle Bronze Age peoples of the Great Hungarian Plain and Transdanubia, the Vatya culture was, except for the last decade, rather a blank area of Bronze Age research in Hungary. It was neglected, in the first line, as for publications of the find material, of which still about 80 per cent is not published. As late as at the end of the thirties V. G. Childe

2 having done pioneer work in summing up the culture, could rely only on larger articles, publishing finds excavated at the turn of the century in a way exemplary even to-day.

1 In the thirties and forties the finds of the culture were dealt with in synthetic works either regarding them as an independent unity (P. Patay, A. Mozsolics)

4 or together with other finds (F. Tompa, VI. Milojciè).

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5 The chain of excavations in the confines of Dunaújváros, executed in the 1950-s, where an important settlement of the culture — Kosziderpadlás — and cemeteries belonging to it were unearthed, is to be considered as a landmark on this field. The majority of the finds represent the relics of the Vatya culture.

7 We find the outlines of the first monographical treatment, based on the whole source material of this culture known at that time, in an unpublished work of István Bóna, written in 1958;" of this only a brief account was printed.

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0 As a „cultural background", the culture came in prominence again and again in the course of a debate on the dating of Koszider type hoards.

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1 The systematic explaration of fortified hill settlements, begun in 1958, furnished so far numerous important proofs for a better knowledge of the history of settlements and of inner chronology.

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2 The fact that the majority of the finds is still unpublished is perhaps responsible for the many divergences in the special literature, even in that of the period after World War II, regarding the origins, chronological position and inner structure of the Vatya culture.

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6 A many-sided discussion developed solely on ethnical and chronological problems of the last phase of the culture. The outlines of our results, based on a collection of data from the entire Carpathian basin, are published at another place;

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7 here we merely refer to the more important facts. 1. In the relative chronology of the Bronze Age of Hungary there is an independent period of evolution, namely the Koszider phase, to be set between the „classical Middle Bronze Age" and the Late Bronze Age. Its terminus post quem is given by the Hajdúsámson (Tisza regions) resp. the Százhalombatta— Kelebia (the country on either side of the Danube)-type hoards, its terminus ante quem by the date when the Koszider-type hoards were hidden; this period embraces roughly the 14th century B.C.

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8 2. Among the cultural units of mixed ethnic components (as e.g. the Szeremle group and Bodrogszerdahely group),

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9 formed at this time, the population, having