Somogyvári Ágnes – V. Székely György szerk.: A Barbaricum ösvényein… A 2005-ben Kecskeméten tartott tudományos konferencia előadásai - Archaeologia Cumanica 1. (Kecskemét, 2011)

Mária Hajnalová: Bread of Sarmatians on the Danube, or evidence of arable farming at the site of Harta-Gátőrház (Bács-Kiskun County) in the Roman Period

MÁRIA HAJNALOVÁ: A SZARMATÁK KENYERE A DUNÁNÁL Mária Hajnalová Bread of Sarmatians on the Danube, or evidence of arable farming at the site of Harta-Gátőrház (Bács-Kiskun County) in the Roman Period Preliminary report Introduction Questions concerning the interaction between the Romans, conquering "barbarian" peoples living on the territories of the future Roman provinces and the Barbarians living just beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire have intrigued archaeologists for many generations. Over the past decade a project was conducted in Germany with the goal of addressing various aspects of the "Romanization" of the "Barbarians" both inside and outside the province, and the "Germanization" of the Roman conquerors. Some very interesting results of this project included archaeobotanical studies from fifty sites in Hessen and Main-Franconia of the food economy and agricultural practices of the Romans, Celts and Germans in this region. They were published by Angela Kreuz.

1 The author of the present article has collected data for a comparative study, for the region of the Middle Danube. The material from Harta-Gátőrház represents a part of something that is comparable to an unfinished mosaic. The goal of this paper is to describe charred plant remains recovered at this site from Sarmatian contexts. This report specifically will outline the interpretive possibilities of the studied material in the wider context of regional archaeological knowledge. This is only a preliminary report, discussing primarily the assortment of cultivated cereals, as the wild plant analysis is still in progress. It is hoped that this report will demonstrate the usefulness and importance of archaeobotanical research and will inspire field archaeologists to undertake more systematic sampling at excavated sites. Environmental Setting and Brief Site Information Harta lies on the left bank of the Danube, 100 km south of Budapest and 20 km north of Kalocsa. Before the river was regulated in modern times, elongated, low-rising and often flattened loess dunes ("hills") protruded from the system of water channels, and perennial water bodies wound through the landscape. As recognised by 1 Kreuz 2005 the first farmers in the Neolithic period, and later in Early Antiquity, these locations had offered (and still offer) suitable conditions for settlement and farming. The loess ridges in the Harta region were favoured and densely settled during the Roman period, as demonstrated by the results of a series of surveys conducted by Rozália Kustár (personal communication) and recent archaeological excavations.

2 Building activities connected to the correction of road no. 51, which took place between October 2002 and November 2003, have unearthed a series of archaeological sites in the Harta region. One of them, the site of Harta-Gátőrház, excavated by Rozália Kustár and Andrea Lantos (2005), is situated 2 km NNW of the village. It spreads over a loess hill rising low from the inundation. The western border of the once-settled area is today approximately 400 metres from the modern flow of the Danube. The total excavated area covers 22 000 m

2 and carries features dating to the Neolithic, Roman, Arpadian and Modern Ages. Sarmatian settlement features of the Roman Age, represented by one building (house/hut), seventyseven settlement pits, thirty-nine postholes and four ditches, were clustered in the southern part of the site. Thick-walled handmade ceramic forms are far more numerous in the excavated pottery material than the grey thin wheel-made ones. Imitations of terra sigillata were also found.

3 As shown in the excavations directed by Erika Wicker and Dániel Nagy, this Sarmatian settlement to the extends further south to Harta road no. 51, 96-97 km - to the Szülei Lyuk site. Their findings included: 28 buildings (houses/huts), 17 hearths, 3 smoke-houses, 3 wells, 488 pits, 185 postholes, 3 ditches and 3 graves dating to the Roman Age.

4 The majority of these features dated to the 2nd-5th century AD. Chronology is based 2 Kustrár 2005, Kustár, Lantos 2005, Wicker 2005 3 Kustár, Lantos 2005 4 Wicker 2005, Nagy 2005 161