Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 6.-7. 1965-1966 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1966)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Bándi Gábor: The Cemetery of Ercsi-Sinatelep. VI–VII, 1965–66. p. 11–25. t. I–XIV.

to the graves at Vánusföld,

89 nor are they void e. g. of Nagyrév suspension vessels and metal types; further a part of their grave-goods were annihilated, the graves remained unpublished, so they cannot be accepted at face value . Analyzing these groups of graves we find that nearly all types of the urns, bowls, jugs and mugs, also bronze objects show authentical Nagyrév or southern forms, respectively, thus they are of a southern origin naturally. Only two forms may be separated from the whole material which do not belong to the Nagyrév circle. These forms, the urn with a funnel-shaped neck and the small jug with a globular body and a cylindrical neck, may actually be connected with the archaeological material of the Guntramsdorf-Dassburg folk or Oriental derivation, appearing at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the Vienna Basin and perhaps in Western Transdanubia. This is borne out also by a certain relationship of ornaments. Returning now to the remaining statements made by Bona, we must base our criticism on the fact that the Kisapostag culture, selfstanding only in name and in scientific literature, as the material has proved, has no genuine existence as a definable culture even in the stripe along the Danube. Putting the question in principle, we reach the same conclusion. We know the presented material; is the total of the reviewed data sufficient to fulfil the terminological requirements of a „culture"? We say no, naturally. The total of these find complexes is the more suitable to bear the definition of an ethnical group of a culture, meaning a definable, so-called ethnographical unit of a people, i. e. a culture. The conclusion becomes evident that we are justified in discarding the invasion of a significant Oriental population, the existence of the so-called Kisapostag culture, and even its important historical role in the subsequent period. We ought not explain the appearance of really existent but very scarce Oriental cultural elements along the Danube with other reasons than connections, possibly a minimal personal infiltration in the frame of a definable group of a large culture. This, however, could not be stronger than the infiltration of the Bell-Beaker folk and, as proved by our material, it could only happen inside the Nagyrév culture or by its mediation, respectively. 89 Ibid.; Pl. Ill—IV. 80 a) In applying the above nomenclature I intended to synchronize the expressions used by the terminology of archaeology and universal etnology (group — ethnical group, etc.). b) It is a grave defect of our archaeological literature that it neglected to analyze and to elaborate the problems of continuity, amalgamation, conquest and subjection, so it does not know the rules of these important phenomena and the possible forms of their realization in Therefore an assessment of the situation of this typically Nagyrév group, coloured by Oriental elements, its chronological allocation and the explanation of these alien elements along the Danube must be solved in the framework of the Nagyrév culture. In answering our questions we get a considerable help from the comprehensive treatment of the cemeteries of the Nagyrév culture.

91 The Ökörhalom, Kulcs and Szigetszentmiklós groups have a paramount importance for us. The Ökörhalom group, the most ancient and geographically the most extended type of the culture, may be reckoned with in the area of Eastern Transdanubia partly as a precedent, partly as a formative factor of the Kulcs and Szigetszentmiklós groups.

92 Actually the understanding of our Nagyrév cemeteries (or group) of the Kisapostag type is facilitated by an investigation of the closely coherent Kulcs and Szigetszentmiklós groups. The Kulcs group has no immediate relation to these cemeteries and, as an analysis of the Kulcs cemetery has shown, also a chronological distinction is possible.

9:i Regarding the relation of these two Nagyrév groups, I. Bona has derived the Szigetszentmiklós group from the Ökörhalom one, attributing the origin of the Kulcs type to a slow southern dislocation of the former; as to the Kulcs group, he regarded it as the youngest one of the culture, though with some reservations. In our view our cemeteries and stray finds of Kisapostag character are organic parts of the Szigetszentmiklós group, their extension is wholly identical, consequently our cemeteries are but the very important sites of this group. All the authentic sites of the Szigetszentmiklós group contain such material, influenced by the East, so it is exactly the composition of the material culture which distinguishes it as an ethnical group from the remaining ones of the Nagyrév culture. Accordingly we propose to call the group, defined and extended in the said manner, the SZIGETSZENTMIKLÖS—KISAPOSTAG GROUP. In Eastern Transdanubia it was this group which represented the youngest period of the Nagyrév culture, since our cemeteries furnish sufficient proof for an unbroken development towards the Vatya culture of the Middle Bronze Age.

95 Consequently the period of the Nagyrév culture was initiated by the appearance of the their framework. An essential problem is e. g. the role of endogamy in the contact of the various peoples, a part of the mentioned huge complex. 91 I. BONA: Alba Regia '2 3 (1961—62) pp. 11. seq. 92 Ibid. 93 I. BONA: The Bronze Age . . . pp. 74 seq. 94 I. BONA : Alba R.egia 1 (1960) p. 15. 95 I. BONA : Geschichte . . . pp. 12 seq. 23