Majorossy Judit: A Ferenczy Múzeum régészeti gyűjteményei - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, D. sorozat: Múzeumi füzetek - Kiállításvezetők 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Rajna András: Rézko
wearing wild boar tusk plates were most probably important members of the Neolithic communities, they could be some kind of leaders, or maybe good hunters. There were no separated cemeteries in the Early and Middle Neolithic, the dead were buried at the edges of the settlements, usually at places already out of use. The deceased were buried in shallow graves, sometimes at the edges of garbage pits, laid on their left or right sides, in contracted position. In the Middle Neolithic graves jewels made of shell are often to be found. These jewels were made of spondylus gaederopus shells living in the Adriatic and the Aegean Sea, and reaching the Carpathian Basin through long-distance trade. One of the characteristic types of jewels is the disc-shaped, palm-sized pendant cut from the shell, with two small holes on it. These spondylus pendants are known both from the graves of children and adults, and they usually lay on the waist of the dead. The pendant, which can be seen in the exhibition, was found in a child-grave near Cegléd, and was on the hip bone of the dead child. Other popular jewels of the Middle Neolithic were the big shell beads. These beads were made of the hinge of the right calve of the spondylus. They were 2-6 centimetres long and in most of the cases cylindrical, but near Cegléd and Abony biconical and flattened ball (button-like) types were also found. The big shell beads occur both in the graves of men and women, children and adults, and they were often placed around the neck of the dead. Until the Middle Neolithic Period the burials were poor in grave goods. Apart from the shell jewels, only a small cup or a lump of ochre was put into the graves. In a grave excavated at Abony, a vessel full of red ochre was laid next to the skull. While, at Budakeszi an exceptionally rich grave was excavated, in which six vessels were lying next to the skeleton. The first separated cemeteries near the great settlements appeared in the Late Neolithic, and these already contained more hundreds or even thousands of burials. Near the famous Neolithic site of Aszód 224 graves were discovered. The burials of the Late Neolithic are much richer in grave goods as well as in painted pottery, and they can contain stone implements, jewels made of shell or copper. During the New Stone Age the territory of the current Pest County was a borderland of cultures of the Great Plain and the Transdanubian region. Important trade routes run through this area. Marine shells came from the South and South-East, the trade of stone raw materials were channeled East-West direction, the flint arrived from the West, namely from the Bakony Hills, while the obsidian reached this region from the East, from the area around Tokaj. In the Middle Neolithic those Transdanubian groups living near Budapest crossed the Danube and expanded along the trade routes into the Gödöllő Hills, the Nógrád Hills, and the Tápió valley. One of the most important trade centre of the Late Neolithic was the settlement near Aszód. In the last years a growing number of large New Stone Age sites were excavated, with huge amounts of archaeological finds in the Western and Eastern half of Pest County, too. Important Neolithic sites have been found near Cegléd and Abony in the Great Plain as well as in the surroundings of Szob, Budakeszi, Biatorbágy, and Törökbálint in the Transdanubian territory. Today more than ten thousand registered finds, burials, house remains, sacrificial pits, and ditch-systems show the colourfulness and richness of the Neolithic in Pest County. 13 Kagyló és mészkő gyöngyök, középső neolitikum / Shell and limestone beads, Middle Neolithic
