A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve, 1980/81-1.(Szeged, 1984)

Régészet - Horváth, Ferenc: Ada-type Artifacts of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Alföld

A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 1980—81/1 ADA-TYPE ARTIFACTS OF THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IN THE SOUTHERN ALFÖLD* FERENC HORVÁTH (Szeged, Móra Ferenc Museum) The most important of the Early Bronze Age artifacts which have been collected from sites in the Southern Alföld (Great Hungarian Plain) were published in comprehensive monographs during the sixties. Together with previous research their study contributed greatly to archaeology in Hungary. István Bóna's comprehensive studies of the Nagyrév

1 culture and then the Óbéba—Pitvaros

2 group were the first to appear in 1963 and 1965. Shortly afterwards, Nándor Kalicz published his monograph on the Early Bronze Age including the Southern Alföld and artifacts from the Makó

3 group. In 1974 István Ecsedy's description of the burial from Csongrád

4 and Béla Kürti's report on the most recently discovered Early Bronze Age materials were published in the same volume.

5 The first is a synthesis of all the data that was known at that time about the Ochre grave — Kurgan peoples of Eastern Hungary. Béla Kürti broadened our picture of the period by his study of unpublished artifacts from the museum in Szeged as well as the material from two other rescue excavations. Since that time however, work on the origins of the Early Bronze Age has essentially stopped

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. The results of this decade of synthesis may be briefly summed up as follows : Although the people of the Ochre Grave culture were previously thought to be the earliest of the Early Bronze Age group and thus were ascribed a major role in the development of the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Alföld, it now appears that the formation of the Early Bronze Age in this area has neither the chronological nor the typological links with the Ochre grave culture in the way it had been thought. On the basis of Gyula Gazdapusztai's research, new Rumanian work, and gravegoods from the Csongrád burial, István Ecsedy now considers the first occurence of the Ochre grave — Kurgan culture to be synchronous with the Bodrogkeresztur culture. * I would like to thank Professor István Bona for his help and critical comments in the revision of this paper. In addition I would like to thank him for directing my attention to the Ada type vessel from Zombor. The final manuscript was completed in October 1980 although in 19761 first described this type material, at that time without the Ada name, at the 9th UISPP Congress in Nice (Horváth, 1976). Further thanks for translating and typing, graphics and photography are due to Ms. Alice M. Choyke and dr. László Bartosiewicz, Pál Tóth illustrator and Mrs. Anikó Toppantó Nagy Czirok photographer. 1 Bona (1963). 2 Bona (1965a). 3 Kalicz (1968). 4 Ecsedy (1974). 8 Kürti (1974). e Other Early Bronze Age sites were found at the same time in the surroundings of Makó and Hódmezővásárhely. 7