Csengeri Piroska - Tóth Arnold (szerk.): A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 55. (Miskolc, 2016)

Régészet - B. Hellerbrandt Magdolna: A Gáva-kultúra települése Köröm-Kápolna-dombon

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B. Hellebrandt Magdolna

in a NE—SW direction, 105 cm below ground level, and measured 560 x 390 cm. There was a pit in the southwest corner of the house. It was 19 cm deeper than the floor level and extended under the wall; parts of it could be observed on the other side of the wall as well. Feature no. 98 (a house), brought to light at the same site, was 250 x 250 cm and 145 cm below the present ground level. There was a 47 cm deep, circular pit in the southeast corner. This house was dug into an extremely hard type of clay which forms the subsoil in the area (WOLF—SIMONYI 1995, 6—7, Figs. 5 and 7), similarly to Köröm-Kápolna-domb. Oval-shaped houses similar to those discovered at Köröm were built by the Etruscans as well; these also had a central post hole, that is, a post that supported the roof (BURANELLI 1992, 36). Oval-shaped, aboveground huts are known in the form of burial urns from Vulci (REICH 1987, 75), dated to ca. 800 BC.

The partially preserved house no. 10 had an oval-shaped recess beside the eastern wall, south of the central post hole. The pit was 140 x 100 cm large and 30 cm deeper than the floor. The fully preserved house no. 16 had two of these large, oval-shaped pits on the eastern side (B. HELLEBRANDT 2015, Fig. 4. 1). The pit closer to the entrance was bigger, 142 cm long and 48 cm wide, while the second, smaller pit was 110 cm long and 40 cm wide. Both features were 21 cm deep. Two small, elongated recesses were observed in house no. 20 as well: one east of the central post hole, and another west of it. Similar phenomena have been documented from Late Celtic houses. At the site Mezőkeresztes-Fűzfás, on the northern side of house no. 7, a trench 60 cm in length and 19 cm in width was observed (B. HELLEBRANDT 2013, Fig. 8). A similar phenomenon, that is, a trench 200 cm in length and 30 cm in width, interpreted as remains of a partition wall, was brought to light at Balatonmagyaród-Kiskányavár, feature no. 8 (HORVÁTH 1987, 62, Fig. 7. 2). Small, 30-50 cm deep pits dug into the floors of houses at Tiszalök-Rázompuszta were identified by István Méri as seats (MÉRI 1952, 60). Júlia Kovalovszki documented two houses in the Árpád Period village excavated at Szarvas-Rózsás (KOVALOVSZKI 1960, Fig. 4. 1). House no. 1 measured 240 x 300 cm, and its floor was 117 cm deep. An 80 cm long section of its wall was preserved. The house’s pit was filled up with ash and clay. An oval-shaped pit, measuring 95 x 55 cm, came to light next to the southwest corner of this house. The flat bottom of the pit was 48 cm deep measured from the house’s floor level, and its walls narrowed downwards. House no. 2 at the same archaeological site was 280 x 320 cm in size, 120 cm deep, and had two pits. One of these was situated in the southwest corner of the house, this was an egg-shaped pit, 90 x 65 cm in size and 32 cm deep, with sloping walls that narrowed downwards and a basin-like bottom. The second pit measured 60 x 40 cm, was 16 cm deep, its bottom was flat and its form was identical to those excavated at Rázom. Kovalovszki also interpreted these as seats or working pits used in domestic activities, such as spinning and weaving. None of the houses at Szarvas had plastered floors.

No traces of wear or damage that may have been caused by people sitting down or moving their legs were observed on the pits excavated at Köröm. Therefore, their utilization as working pits is unlikely, which is also supported by ethnographic and medieval archaeological evidence. Beehive-shaped pits came to light during István Méri’s excavation at Túrkeve-Móric; these were present in houses no. 4, no. 8, no. 9 and no. 14. He hypothesized that these were used to store food, perhaps in wartime (MÉRI 1954, 146). No grains were recovered from them. At Gelej-Sinkahalom, a Late Celtic house (no. 10) featured a pit that extended under the wall next to the entrance (B. HELLEBRANDT 2013, Figs. 35—36). At Köröm-Kápolna-domb, feature SNR 053 must have been a storage pit associated with house SNR 042. This pit also extended under the house’s wall and yielded a storage vessel fragment. The ethnographer Nándor Ikvai argued that such pits were used as substitutes for storage jars (IKVAI 1966, 345-346). All this suggest that pits inside houses were used for storing food and keeping it cool, and people utilized such features in the Late Bronze Age, the Late Iron Age as well as in the Middle Ages.

Storage pits, refuse pits, and clay extraction pits. Ethnographic research considers underground grain storage to be the oldest technique of preservation (IKVAI 1966, 343-344), a method that was widespread in Europe. It was most common in Central, Central-Eastern and Southern Europe. Storage pits dating back to the 11th—13th century were brought to light at Tiszalök-Rázompuszta (MÉRI 1952, 60), Pécs-Tettye (PARÁDI 1959, 131) and Szarvas-Rózsás (KOVALOVSZKI 1960, 37). These pits were pear-shaped, their greatest breadth is 150 cm and they are 225 cm deep. However, none of them yielded grains. Grain storage pits used in the 17th—19th century were similar to their predecessors, and they provide the basis for reconstructing the use of archaeological storage pits. The dense, clayey soil of Köröm-Kápolna-domb was ideal for digging pits. Such soils are moderately alkaline, and so they keep fungi from thriving (IKVAI 1966, 359). Old, abandoned pits were not marked in any way, and when an old pit was discovered during digging, people usually left the dig unfinished and found a different place for the new pit (IKVAI 1966, 362). This may have been the case with the pits of feature no. 17 on Köröm-Kápolna-domb, where one pit was dug into another (Fig. 29). The same was observed at features SNR 015 and SNR 016 during the 2014 rescue excavation. When they ceased to function as rooms of storage, the pits were disinfected by fire and smoke, and so the natural lime present in the soil aggregated on the pit walls as mortar (IKVAI 1966, 358). The same process must have taken place at feature no. 42 as well (Fig. 35. 2).