Vadas Ferenc (szerk.): A Szekszárdi Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum Évkönyve 13. (Szekszárd, 1986)

Pál Raczky: The cultural and chronological relations of the Tisza Region during the Middle and the Late Neolithic, as reflected by the excavations at Öcsöd-Kováshalom

halom complex in the areas formerly inhabited by the later groups of the Alföld Linear Pottery, namely the Szakáihát, Szilmeg, Bükk and Esztár groups, was roughly contemporaneous with the appearance of the Lengyel culture in Transdanubia. This can be dated to the beginning of the Vinca C period, and this also marked the start of the Late Neolithic in the Tisza region, with a new material culture, new settlement forms and new settlement patterns. The influx of a new population from the south has also been suggested. It is an important point of this theory that the so-called textile-ornamented pottery, the most characteristic feature of the Tisza material and the first tell settlements appear at roughly the same time, and thus both can be interpreted as marking an important historical turning point [Kalicz-Makkay (1977) 116-117; Makkay (1982) 62-67.]. However, the excavations at Öcsöd, a small tell lying along a former watercourse of the Körös river (Fig. 1), yielded somewhat different results. The lower layer, marking the beginning of this settlement form, was characterised by Szakáihát finds (Fig. 6:1,4; Fig. 9:12-18; Fig. 10:11-14), similar to the lowermost layers of other major tell settlements investigated at Tápé, Battonya, Vésztő and Szegvár: at these sites, the layers yielding textile-ornamented pottery invariably overlay a layer, or layers, characterised by Szakáihát type pottery decorated with incised curvilinear and spiral motifs [Makkay (1982) 60-64 and footnote 120]. Nonetheless, a direct continuity could be obeserved between these layers. At Öcsöd, the lower layer of the tell yielded general Szakáihát pottery types alongside new wares, such as bitumen-covered pottery which was further ornamented with various motifs of straw applied onto the vessel surface (Fig. 7: 1; Fig. 11: 1-4). Similar wares have also been recovered at Szegvár [Csalog (1958) 108-110], Vésztő (Personal information of Katalin Hegedűs), Gorzsa [Horváth (1982) 211], Battonya [Goldman (1984) 32], Herpály [Kalicz-Raczky (1984) 131], and also at Békásmegyer [Gáboriné (1964) 207-209; Pavuk (1969) 299], Szécsény [Soós (1982) 21], Eger [Kalicz-Makkay (1977) Pl. 116:19] and Borsod [Korek-Patay (1958) Pl. VIII: 12] from a late Middle Neolithic context. (Earlier this „ware" was thought to be a variant of resin decoration.) The physico-chemical analyses of the Öcsöd vessels indicate that it was probably obtained from Transylvania, which outlines one possible route of interconnection. The other characteristic trait of the pottery is that, alongside the incised curvilinear and spiral decoration covering the entire vessel surface, also quadrangular motifs appear (Fig. 10:8,18-21), and there is starting to be a tendency to divide the vessel surface into panels filled with geometric patterns (Fig. 10:18; Fig. 9:9) [Csalog (1955) 23-44; Csalog (1958) 102-114]. The red, yellow and black crusted (pastose) painting characterising the later phase of the Bükk and Zseliz cultures also makes its appearance in Szakáihát contexts [Pavúk (1969) 296-299; Kalicz-Makkay (1977) 46-47,91; Kalicz (1984) 274]. These traits date these assemblages to the close of the Middle Neolithic. Overlying this layer at Öcsöd was another one yielding entirely different finds. Here, beside the older Szakáihát forms and motifs (curvilinear, spiral decoration: Fig. 15: 2, 5-8) the appearance of new vessel forms (Fig. 6:3) was coupled with a novel mode of ornamentation, with the division of vessel surface into panels filled with rectilinear geometric motifs imitating woven textile patterns (Fig. 9:11; Fig. 12: 1-18; Fig. 13: 1-14; Fig. 10: 2-6, 9, 14). The proportion of bitumen-covered wares declines, and is replaced by black painting in wide bands, which often complement or highlight the applique ornaments (Fig. 14:1-10). A unique vessel frag104