Balogh Csilla – P. Fischl Klára: Felgyő, Ürmös-tanya. A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Monumenta Archeologica 1. (Szeged, 2010)

The Bronze Age settlement and cemetery at Felgyő

118 P. FISCHL Klára - GUBA Szilvia OVERVIEW OF THE BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENTS The Early Bronze Age settlement Although few in number, the Early Bronze Age finds from Felgyö enrich the corpus of the period's finds in the Csongrád area. The publication of the finds from earlier excavations (e.g. from Tiszalúc-Sarkad: SZATHMÁRI 1999) and of the Makó finds brought to light during large-scale excavations (KOOS 1998; KOOS 1999) provide a more detailed, although far from complete picture of this prehistoric period. Unfortunately, the few Makó finds from Felgyö could not be associated with specific settlement features and they are thus unsuitable for offering information about settlement patterns. The low number of finds indicates a less intensive occupation. The finds and features observed on the area's other sites at Csongrád-Vidre-sziget, Csongrád-Saroktanya and Csongrád-Sertéstelep indicate a more intensive occupation on these settlements (TÓTH 2001. 132). The few Nagyrév vessel fragments can hardly be interpreted as indicating an independent Nagyrév settlement at Felgyö. Most of the Nagyrév finds from the southerly areas of the Great Hungarian Plain are stray finds (BÓNA 1963). The single professionally excavated Nagyrév site lies at Bäks (P. FISCHL-KISS-KULCSÁR 1999, 99). The cultural attribution and dating of the Nagyrév finds is difficult in the lack of any context. Similar pottery forms occur in other contemporaneous cultures, whose chronological and regional position relative to each other is for the greater part unclear."

4 The Middle Bronze Age settlement The finds indicate the presence of an open Vatya settlement on the sandy hillock north of the cemetery site at Ürmös-tanya. A few pits uncovered in the area of the cemetery can probably also be assigned to the Bronze Age. The finds from several features can no longer be found in the Csongrád museum and thus the date of these features is uncertain. A similar, simultaneously used settlement and cemetery has been investigated at Csongrád-Vidre-sziget (G. SZÉNÁSZKY 1977). The pottery from the Felgyö settlement can be dated to the late Vatya period; this dating is also supported by the import finds from the settlements, such as a decorated cup of the Füzesabony culture (Fig. 52. 1). While the scattered cremation burials in the Csanytelek and Kelebia cemeteries can perhaps be interpreted as indicating the arrival and settlement of population groups from Transdanubia, the Encrusted Pottery vessels found on the settlement and in the cemetery at Felgyö are import wares. The animal burials found during the excavation of the settlement deserve special mention. Pits a and ß came to light in Trench c of the 1971 campaign. Pit a contained the bones of various animals, while pit ß yielded a complete horse skeleton (Fig. 56. 5; BALOGH-P. FISCHL 2010, Fig. 30). László believed that these two pits had been part of the Conquest period settlement. The examination of the photos from the excavation revealed that two other pits had also contained complete animal skeletons: one of these was a pit with a dog skeleton, mentioned in the field diary of the 1963 campaign (Fig. 56. 2), the other was a pit containing three human skeletons and a horse skeleton (Fig. 56. 1). The area investigated in 1963 lay beside the ditch dug for the water-pipes, in the area of the Nagyistók and Csizmadia farmsteads. No Bronze Age features were noted in this area and thus the pit with the dog skeleton can be regarded as a settlement feature of the Sarmatian period. The exact location of the feature with the three human skeletons and the horse skeleton could not be identified from the surviving written and graphic documentation, and thus its date remains uncertain. The dating of the other features containing animal burials is likewise doubtful. While similar features are not known from the early Árpádian Age, several examples can be quoted from the settlements and cemeteries of the Vatya culture: Zalotay mentions three dog burials from Kelebia (Graves 71, 90 and 118),"

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l which he regarded as dating from the Bronze Age (ZALOTAY 1957). According to Kálmán Szabó, a complete cattle skeleton lay under one of the urns at Izsák (BÓNA 1975, 59). An almost complete horse skeleton was found in a pit of the Csongrád-Vidre-sziget settlement (G. SZÉNÁSZKY 1977, 22-23). An incomplete dog skeleton lay in one of the pits at Albertirsa, an open settlement (DINNYÉS 2003, 194), while the complete skeleton of a 3 years old bull was found on a charred plank floor at Százhalombatta, in a layer from the tell's Koszider period occupation (POROSZLA1-VICZE 2004. 292). Another pit of the Koszider period yielded two sheep skeletons, one of which lacked the limbs (GUBA 2005, 28). Although pits a and ß lie beyond the probable boundary of the Bronze Age cemetery, it seems likely that they can nonetheless be associated with the Bronze Age occupation of the Ürmös-tanya site. According to the field diary, three other pits of the Bronze Age also came to light in the trenches opened in this area aside from the ones containing the animal remains. One of these, lying among the crouched burials, was found in 1972, the other two in Trench lOf of the 1974 campaign. The finds from the pits are not known and very little information on the 1974 campaign has survived, and thus the three Bronze Age pits can only be tentatively regarded as part of the Bronze Age cemetery. The dating and interpretation of the row of pits found south of the cemetery's graves is also uncertain. The excavator interpreted the pits as the post-holes of a Bronze Age timber-framed building, and supported this dating by noting that Grave 206, an Avar burial, cut through one of the pits and that a few pits yielded prehistoric finds. This interpretation seems untenable in the lack of analogies and the absence of securely datable finds.'

1 A similar row of pits was uncovered at Kiskundorozsma-Hosszúhát-halom which was tentatively interpreted as a row of post-holes of a palisade fence enclosing the cemetery (BENDE-LÓRINCZY 2002, 77). Even though the exact date and the function of the row of pits is uncertain, an interpretation along these lines seems unlikely in the case of the Felgyö cemetery. 28 For the typological analysis of the vessel, cp. the section on the urns. 29 For a good overview of this issue, cp. V. SZABÓ 1999; P. FISCHL-KISS-KULCSÁR 1999, 100. 30 While Zalotay seemed unsure about the date of the animal burials in the section containing the grave descriptions, he seemed certain that they could be assigned t the Bronze Age in the discussion of the finds.