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

Öcsöd-Kováshalom (P. Raczky)

ÖCSÖD-KOVASHALOM Disc-shaped Spondylus pendant. Classical Tisza culture. H: 9.4 cm [26] cipient social ranking within individual groups, with the competing groups expressing their identity more in their material culture (HODDER 1982a, 172-175; STARLING 1985, 54-55). These similarities suggest a similarly complex process at the beginning of the Late Neolithic in the Great Hungarian Plain as in Central Europe. The ornamentation of the pottery of phase A thus probably marks an incipient social and economic transformation. Local Szakáihát elements still dominate in the ceramic inventory; however, the appearance of a new ware, vessels with a bitumen coating into which were embedded small-cut pieces of straw arranged into various patterns, already foreshadows coming changes. The widespread distribution of vessels coated with bitumen - that was earlier thought to be resin - is diagnostic of the early Tisza period and is without exception to be found on early Tisza settlements. At the same time, the broader geographic distribution of this ware that has also been recovered from Bükk, Zseliz and Szilmeg contexts outlines its wider cultural setting (RACZKY 1985, 104). The use of bitumen in pottery decoration, attested since the Dudesti-Ciumesti period in Transylvania and Oltenia, survived into the middle phase of the Piscolt group (COM^A 1974, 10; LAZAROVICI-NÉMETI 1983, 32); it has also been reported from the Vinca culture (VASIC 1932-36, I, PI. XXIV), suggesting that possible sources of this commodity should be localised to these Model of a shrine in the form of a fenestrated pedestal with a bowl on top and decorated with yellow painting applied after firing on a red slip. Early Tisza culture. H: 16 cm [27] Fragment of a necked amphora with black painted decoration on its shoulder showing a stylized sanctuary. Early Tisza culture. H: 21.6 cm [28] 75