Juhász Magdolna (szerk.): A kaposvári Rippl-Rónai Múzeum közleményei 5. (Kaposvár, 2018)
Horváth Tünde: Harcosnők klubja? - Specializált társadalmi helyzetű nők a késő rézkor időszakában Magyarországon
94 Fightress clubs? Women with a special social status in the Late Copper Age in Hungary TÜNDE HORVÁTH In this study, my focus is on the social position of women in the Baden complex and the Yamna culture, the two dominant macro-regional cultures of the Late Copper Age (3600-2800 BC) and the ensuing transitional period (2800-2600 BC) in Hungary in the light of the archaeological record. Although the Beaker population is assigned to the Early Bronze Age (2500-1900 BC) in the Hungarian chronological system, it is dated to the Late Neolithic/ Late Copper Age and the Reinecke АО in other regions of Europe where this culture was distributed, and I have therefore included it in my analysis. My comparison is thus based on a complex body of evidence: on the cultures living simultaneously in a region on the one hand, and on successive cultures on the other, which also affords a look at differently organised societies as well as at certain diachronic tendencies. Viewed from another perspective, we can only shed light on the social position of women if we are familiar with the social position of the period’s men. There, I have searched for the signs of aggression and violence in the three cultures examined here, and I have identified former charismatic persons who can be plausibly associated with warfare and battling. Obviously, we generally single out cases, which for one reason or another seem special to us as archaeologists: unique, particularly striking phenomena and finds. At the same time, the retrojection into prehistory of cases that appear to be unusual can be a source of many pitfalls in interpretation. Ultimately, only so much can be said that in all three cultures studied here, there were women occupying a special position in their societies - either owing to their profession, their wealth, or their knowledge - who visibly rose above the average in a manner that is still discernible today. This stereotype is as old as human society, a phenomenon attested in every age. Being an intrinsic part of human nature, aggression and violence can be documented from the Palaeolithic onward. We can only draw meaningful conclusions regarding the period discussed here if we also examine the societies of the preceding and ensuing periods, enabling the identification and assessment of possible salient changes as well as the continuity of existing traditions on the tendency level.
