Tálas László szerk.: The late neolithic of the Tisza region (1987)

Öcsöd-Kováshalom (P. Raczky)

P. RACZKY excavation area, allowing the accurate reconstruction of houses and their architectural features. 9 houses and two other structures were uncovered altogether. The houses were all above-ground structures with rectangular groundplan and a pitched roof. Their length ranged between 7 to 18.5 m, their width between 3.5 to 8 m. These houses were either bi- or tripartite. The roof was supported by triple posts, whilst the walls were reinforced by posts set into a bedding trench; these posts were generally halved timbers, occasionally also used as main supporting posts. The wooden framework of the Öcsöd houses thus consisted of posts aligned in five rows. The posts and halved timbers were interconnected with a wattling of reed and sedge that was then daubed with chaff-tempered clay both on the inside and the outside. A similar technique was employed in the construction of internal partitioning walls that were occasionnally also set into a bedding trench. House floors were mostly of plastered clay that was periodically renewed. The doorway to these house was generally located in their southeastern short wall, in the southern corner. It is fairly clear from the above that the form and construction of the Öcsöd houses share numerous similarities with the Linear Pottery houses of Central Europe (MODDERMAN 1968, 1-7; STARTIN 1978, 143-153; MASUCH-ZIESSOW 1983, 229-260; BRANDT 1980, 1-20). There was, until recently, little in the way of evidence for such heavy timber-framed houses in the Tisza culture; however, there is now accumulating data for their presence in the Tisza region and also for their local origins (KALICZ-RACZKY 1985, 99-107; HEGEDŰS 1981, 3,11). The construction of the Öcsöd houses undoubtedly required a large measure of cooperation between the inhabitants, especially when several houses were erected simulQuadrangular shallow bowl with four holes on its lower side and small schematized animal heads on the rim at the comers. Early Tisza culture. H: 6.5 cm [21] 72 Reconstruction of a collared vessel with rich incised motifs set in distinct panels. Classical Tisza culture. H: 19.2 cm [22] taneously as, for example, at the end of phase A, when a new house was built betwen the two buildings lying farther from the watercourse: the house lying nearer to the fence was relocated a little to the north in order to accomodate the new dwelling. A similar reorganisation can be noted at the beginning of phase B, when the western ends of two building were enlarged until the line of the corral that was thus demolished. These large-scale rebuildings definitely suggest a uniform and preconcieved plan of settlement organisation involving the mobilisation of practically the entire community. The layout of the settlement too reflects a planned organisation of space that in turn implies a more structured social formation under a centralised control. Little has survived of the internal furnishings of the Öcsöd houses since they had not burnt down and also since later renewals often destroyed previous houses. Best preserved were the remains of ovens, one of which had a bipartite plate similar to the Herpály ovens (KALICZ-RACZKY 1984, 108). Most houses contained large-size storage bins whose fragments, however, were generally recovered from refuse pits; some of these bins were ornamented with incised meandric patterns accentuated with red and yellow painting. The most abundant category of finds recovered from the