Tárnoki Judit szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 19. (2009)

Természettudomány és régészet - Alice M. Choyke - László Bartosiewicz - Telltale tools from a tell: Bone and antler manufacturing at Bronze Age Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom, Hungary

Tisicum XIX. Figure 10. The diachronically declining proportion of curated bone tools at Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom. a consistent diachronic decline in the proportion of curated bone tools from 12.5 to 9.7% (Figure 10). Conclusions The technical style and form of the bone tools at Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom reflect three levels of social cohesion representing tradition on the local, regional and broad regional levels. The forms of the very well-made decorative elements appear at many large sites in this period throughout the country. This reflects the permeable boundaries of fashions in the distribution of decorative motifs in general, ornamented heavy-duty antler adzes and picks, decorated horse harness elements, the species used fortooth pendants and other decorative objects meant for display. The reason for these broad distributions in more iconographie - symbolically charged goods is greater mobility related to the high status of the horse everywhere, trade networks, actual movement of semi-specialized artisans producing these beautiful objects and finally commonality in ways of signaling social status. Jászdózsa-Kápolnahalom is typical in the use of meander motifs, incised designs mimicking ceramic motifs and the use of drilled animal teeth including wild boar and brown bear. The low quality of the manufacturing techniques, or loosening of technological rules, resulted in greater variability in tool categories such as awls, as a general characteristic of this period. These less well-made tool types, which formerly appeared in restricted, often more elaborated forms, may reflect on-going changes in the tasks these tools were used for, the value these tasks had for individuals in the community and, perhaps, even shifts in the way the tools were used. It has been suggested here that the technical style of more utilitarian tools at this settlement reflects a certain long-term continuity in the choice of species and skeletal elements of certain tool types in the area of the Great Hungarian Plain. The main tool types include sheep/goat tibia scrapers, dog ulna awls and broad mandible smoothers, short bones with flattened sides and burr and beam hammer/adzes with socketed or oblique ends. At the settlement itself, there was a consistent emphasis on the use of red deer bone, especially in the Hatvan-Füzesabony and Koszider phases, which makes it stand out from other coeval sites. The presence of three red deer trophies and possibly the skulls of other large game animals in one of the fortification ditches, underlines what seems to be the special status of wild animals at this large prehistoric settlement. Red deer in particular seems to have been important, not only economically but also as an animal with given attributes closely woven into the social fabric of this particular community. In addition, the choice of raw materials in terms of species and skeletal element for making particular tools is as much related to tradition as the efficacy of the form of the skeletal element for the intended function of the tool. In other words, custom, belief and practicality need not be mutually exclusive aspects of raw material selection The unusually high proportion of antler tools, half finished tools and manufacture refuse suggests that this valuable raw material may well have been traded beyond the settlement limits. Most of the refuse and half-finished pieces come from the central mound. Social differentiation was a characteristic of societies in the Carpathian Basin from the late Neolithic. At Jászdózsa there may well have been differential access to valuable raw materials such as antler, including the right to gather and stockpile it as well as manufacture objects and trade in them. Interestingly, the importance of this raw material seems to have increased through time at this settlement, whether in trade or for local use. Although the technical style and formal characteristics of certain artifact categories remain remarkably stable over the 400 years of the occupation some changes do occur, particularly atthe end of the Middle Bronze Age in the Koszider period. Horse phalanges appear with flattened sides and incised decoration in addition to the already well-established tradition of working phalanges and astragali from sheep/goat, cattle, and red deer. This use of horse phalanges may be a response to new ideas from the outside world or loosening of processes of familiarity, repetition and habituation which both reflected and strengthened social cohesiveness during the Middle Bronze Age but which was to be disrupted with social changes bringing life to a sudden end at most of the great tell settlements in Middle Bronze Age Hungary. 368